Abstract:
Access to safe, effective and quality medicines is key to achieve sustainable sustainable development goals, but a recurring shortage of health commodities hinders health systems' success, especially for non-communicable diseases. According to the World Health Organization report 2018, accessibility to non-communicable disease medicines is a challenging in low- and middle-income countries. Life-threatening complications associated with diabetes could be prevented or delayed if there is an uninterrupted supply of medicines and other medical devices for early diagnosis and treatment. Self-monitoring blood glucose has been expensive once patients pay them out-of-pocket. Access to affordable treatment is essential to reduce preventable diabetes deaths and improve outcomes. The objective of this study was to assess diabetes health commodities stock out and its effect on the management of diabetes at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali. A descriptive mixed method study design was used to gather relevant information that answers research objectives and questions. Analysis was done using MS EXCEL, SPSS 2023, and thematic analysis for qualitative data. Stock out of diabetes health commodities has been observed at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali. Apart from few diabetes health commodities that did not run into stock out, many of them have been subjects to stock out at the rate ranging from 4% to 100%. Many respondents perceive an untrained, demotivated, and insufficient workforce as causes of stock out of diabetes health commodities. The inadequate budget allocated to health commodities and stringent procurement process hinder the availability in due time. Only 26.8% always get all the prescribed diabetes health commodities within the hospital, and the hardship to get them brings a financial burden where 51.3% spend 5 to 10% of their monthly earnings. Stock out should be avoided to provide adequate control of diabetes conditions, and fewer or delayed complications associated with poor adherence to medication and uncontrolled blood glucose. Training the workforce in the health supply chain to curb the stock out of health commodities, increasing the budget allocated to purchase health commodities, and incorporating blood glucose test strips among diabetes health commodities that are dispensed to outpatients for better home-based blood sugar monitoring and control, are recommended for better diabetes management.
