Durban ‒ A study by the Stop Stockouts Project (SSP) found that the availability and accessibility of medicines at public health facilities in South Africa is the least accessible to users.
The study in partnership with Ritshize titled, ‘Contraceptive Supply Chain: Stockouts and their Causes’, revealed that contraceptives were the most prevalent stockouts in the country. The study focused on the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the North West provinces between April 2022 and June 2023.
The study examined the availability of various types of contraceptives. Throughout the monitoring period, injectable contraception was reported as the least accessible followed by external condoms and the implant.
The study sought to investigate the relationship between supply chain and contraceptive stockouts. While medicines stockouts are widespread across South Africa, this report.
The experiences of health-care users in accessing contraceptives include interviews with public health facility managers to establish the causes of poor access and the mitigation measures in place.
Between April 2022 and June 2023, SSP together with the Ritshidze project surveyed public health users to assess their experiences with accessing contraceptives. In the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, almost all women and girls who were surveyed did not receive the contraceptives they requested, it said.
The project established in 2013, reported that when facility managers were interviewed about the measures implemented to address stockouts, most managers in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal reported having received guidance on how to respond to stock outs, managers in the North West said they had not received such guidance. However, the survey showed that health-care providers made efforts to ensure that health-care users did not leave facilities without medicines.
It also stated that health-care providers either offered users alternative medicines or referred them to facilities that had stock. The survey also highlighted the unavailability of termination of pregnancy services. In all three provinces, most of the surveyed facility managers reported that they referred health-care users seeking these services to other facilities.
“Our findings are that poor national procurement planning continues to be the main driver of contraceptive shortages and stockouts. At the provincial level, causes of stockouts included budgetary limitations, dependence on manual paper-based systems and poor management of stock controls. The report recommends that the national and provincial departments of health urgently address the use of manual data systems for payment and stock management.” it read.
Mangosuthu University of Technology’s clinic Sister, Bongiwe Sithole said that there was a lack of resources which is a source of frustration for girls. She said this while addressing pupils at Ndukwenhle High School in uMlazi.
“Some girls cannot afford the sanitary pads. Girls are forced to skip classes. They have to deal with an environment that is not supportive. They do not have proper places to dispose of the used pads and replace them with clean ones,” she said.
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