Availability of health commodities for public sector in Rwanda: case study of Medical Production and Procurement Division, MPPD

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Medical Production and Procurement Division (MPPD) is the only public central medical store with mission to ensure the availability of health commodities for public health sector in Rwanda. To fulfill this mission MPPD has to perform successfully the supply chain processes through procurement, storage and distribution of health commodities to the public health institutions in the country. In Rwanda, the Supply Chain system is built in such way public health institutions are supposed to be supplied either straight by the central medical store or through the district pharmacies. In line with the above, the performance of the business process in MPPD has an impact to ensure uninterrupted availability of health commodities for public sector in Rwanda. To meet its goal of satisfying the customer’s needs, MPPD should always ensure not only the availability of health commodities but also keep the order fill rate higher by improving internal procurement, storage and distribution processes. This study aims to explore the supply chain processes within MPPD as national central medical store and assess the issues related to timely availability of health commodities in order to provide more understanding of the problem and identify potential areas for improvement. METHODS During this descriptive cross-sectional study, qualitative methodswereapplied. In addition to a comprehensive document review on supply chain processes improvement, the information was gathered through interviews with MPPD staffs and key informants in the different operational units of the central medical store and its stakeholders. The research participants were made up of various groups according to the operational units affecting functionality and MPPD business processes. Purposive sampling was used to select the key playersvis-à-vis the subject under study. Wehave also interviewed other key informants from district pharmacies, Ministry of Health and Non-Government Organizations for whomwe knew that they hold relevant information on MPPD functionality and availability related issues of health commodities in MPPD. Then, the review of data, the thematic approach and SWOT analysis were conducted to better understand the supply chain processes performance of MPPD. RESULTS v The findings of this study have shown that problems of the low availability of health commodities at MPPD is crucial and is more likely to affect the health system because it is not capable to satisfy the pharmaceutical needs for public sector in the country. The possible reasons ofthis problem are manly the rigid and long procurement processes, warehousing capability issues including lack of reliable logistics data for quantification. Then, the results of our study have recommended a full business review of MPPD which advocate for the change MPPD current legal status. Further to that, this study has recommended other researches which could be extended to the entiresupply chain system in Rwanda. CONCLUSION MPPD is facing a serious problem of low availability of health commoditiesand this situation impacts negatively on the national supply chain performance. To overcome this issue, some actions are recommended including review of legal framework of MPPD and the overall review of warehousing and inventory management processes. This could contribute to the optimization of the effectiveness and efficiency during planning of country needs or when handling customer’s requisitions or commands of health commodities.