The purpose of this study was to develop a framework for provision of essential medicines for the district health services to improve clinical outcomes in the primary health facilities. The study was motivated by the experienced medicine stock outs reported by the professional nurses and the media across the country.
Methods:
A qualitative descriptive, exploratory and contextual action research design was followed in the conduct of the research. The data collection was conducted through site visits and semi structured interviews targeting the provincial heads of pharmaceutical services and medical warehouses responsible pharmacists who were purposely selected on the basis of their expert knowledge and experiences from the eight of the nine provinces of the Republic of South Africa which is a developing country with limited resources for provision of healthcare services.The National Department of Health Pharmaceutical Services Officials served as critical readers of the research findings.
Results: The study found that there was no standardized framework for provision of essential medicines for the District Health Services. Resulting in essential medicine stock outs and poor management of diseases at facility level.Based on the site visits conducted and action research findings a proposed Framework covering the selection, procurement, warehousing, distribution and management support components for provision of essential medicines for district health services was developed and subjected to national pharmaceutical experts and district health services managers review and critique which is finally presented, after taking into consideration the experts inputs as a proposed framework emanating from the study.
Conclusion: The study propose a medicine supply management framework for the Republic of South Africa which will contribute towards improving the provisioning and availability of essential medicines within the district health services as a primary access point to the broader health system. It is believed framework implementation will improve treatment outcome as well as disease management by the front line professional nurses.