Factors Affecting Availability of Essential Medicines in Health Units: The Case of Soroti Regional Referral Hospital

Abstract

This study assessed the factors affecting availability of essential medicines in health Units, a case of Soroti Regional Referral Hospital. The study objectives were; to establish how office laws and administrative regulations affected availability of essential medicines in Soroti Regional Referral Hospital; evaluate how stakeholder behavior influenced availability of essential medicines in Soroti Regional Referral Hospital, and finally to find out how Office management affected availability of essential medicines in Soroti Regional Referral Hospital. The study was motivated by the need to understand how Ministry of Health efforts through restructuring the drug procurement system influenced availability of medicines. The study used a cross sectional descriptive design where both qualitative and quantitative methods were employed. A total of 196 respondents were sampled from 260 hospital staff and hospital users. The methods used to collect data were; questionnaire survey, interviews and documentary review. The primary data i.e. from questionnaires administered to hospital staff was used for quantitative analysis using SPSS and the other data was analyzed qualitatively. The findings were that, office laws and administrative regulations positively affected availability of essential medicines although the relationship was weak; stake holder behavior positively affected availability of essential medicines although the relationship was statistically weak while Office/staff management affected availability of essential medicines negatively. The study recommended an increase in the Medicines procurement budget; improvements in the current system of medicines procurement; sensitization of patients; raising salaries and advocating other partners and NGOs to invest more on medicines procurement and management. I learnt that; the hospital is overwhelmed by patients needs, this study alone cannot exhaustively explain the constant stock outs of medicines hence a need for another study in-depth study on this subject.