Database will check hospitals' drug stocks
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The Public Health Ministry is developing a real-time drug database for all hospitals under its supervision as a measure to better control its drug inventory.
“The real-time system will be completed next year,” Public Health Ministry deputy permanent secretary Dr Sopon Mekthon said yesterday.
He said his ministry had been developing this database in collaboration with the Information and Communication Technology Ministry.
Earlier this year, it was exposed that millions of pseudoephedrine-containing medicines have been embezzled from state hospitals and they might have ended up in the hands of drug-trafficking gangs.
Pseudoephedrine is a precursor chemical for the production of methamphetamine.
Sopon said of 845 hospitals under the ministry’s supervision, only eight had been implicated in the pseudoephedrine scandal.
“This means our drug-inventory management is largely effective. We only need to tighten our control of the drug inventory and solve any existing problems,” he said.
Sopon said Public Health Ministry permanent secretary Dr Paijit Warachit has already instructed all hospitals to strictly enforce the nine rules for the control of drug/medical supply inventory.
Among them are that hospitals must not keep supplies larger than what are needed for a three-month period, and the use of expensive medicines must be closely monitored. Also, reports on the drug inventories must be compiled and submitted to supervisors on a regular basis.
The measures are designed to better control the use of medicines and medical supplies at state hospitals.
“We will enforce them strictly in response to the government’s policy to control medical costs,” Paijit said.
