THE shortage of medicine in Fiji can be addressed by recent revision of the procurement process.

Minister for Health and Medical Services Jone Usamate in an interview applauded the recent revision of the procurement process that will help the acquisition of medicine for Fiji’s health plan.

“The Minister for Finance had announced that they are revising the procurement process and this will in turn speed up the tender process and we can distribute medicine on time.”

He said they were aware of the medicine shortages in the public care system today.

“The first issue is for the improvement and the procurement requires we need advice.”

He said issue of the shortage of medicine must be looked at in totality.

“We need to look at the whole supply chain. But information is very important we need to be able to have a communication channel to know what medicine is needed to be purchased on a day-to-day and week-to-week basis.”

He said communication channel would help highlight areas that needed those medicine.

“We constantly distribute the medicine and the speed and ordering must be swift because the thing is all medicine is ordered offshore.”

He confirmed medicine availability is a key feature of their national health plan goals.