Access to medication made easier

The government of Lesotho with support of USAID and Right to Care launched a new healthcare initiative that makes medicine collection for patients with chronic conditions easy and quick. Speaking at the launch on Wednesday this week, the programme coordinator of Right to Care Makatleho Sejane said that the government of Lesotho through the ministry of health with support from USAID has shown a political commitment and leadership in the fight against HIV epidemic by bearing all the costs relating to EllV, TB and other healthcare services.

Sejane also said that Lesotho has achieved the third 909090 target despite the poor arrangement as the country is faced with overburdened and overcrowded health facilities. She also said in the mist of COVID 19, there is an urgent need to promote social distancing by using different health facilities. “As Right to Care, we have been given a mandate by USAIDS to support the ministry of health with the achievement of epidemic control.

Our aim is actually to attain sustainability for control of the epidemic while keeping on drug availability. “We have and we are implementing a programme called Bonolomeds which is a chronic medicine access initiative that is intended to improve accessibility to drugs by chronic and stable public patients. “A central dispensing unit has been established which is drug warehousing which is now responsible for serving the patients who are enrolled at health facilities,” she remarked.

Sojane said that as central dispensing unit the medicine is prepacked with prescriptions from health centres. The individual packs are taken to the selected pickup points which are now our community collection points which now operate as retail chemist. She revealed that there is also a semiautomated eLocker at Pioneer and Maseru Mall, Sankatana Health Centre, St.Joseph’s Hospital and Baylor. She disclosed that there are 16 alternative pick up points which are the retail chemists.

“Patients pick up these parcels at the convenient time and at certain locations making them easily accessible and quick in service. She added that patients do not have to wait in long queues at health facilities, nor miss work, noting that all they needed to is to pick their medicines at designated places. “They only go to facilities when they are due for clinical reviews,” she warned. On behalf of the minister of health, the director of disease control, Llang Maama said her ministry has partnered with Right to Care which is sponsored by PEPFAR and USAID. She said that the programme was meant to make life easy for those chronic patients particularly those with HIV AIDS. But it is considerate that the very people living with HIV AIDS could also have mingle with others who are not infected but need care against chronic infections.

“The ministry of health welcomes the programme and sees it as an opportunistic time to really embrace the Bonolo especially now when we are trying to rekindle our facilities,” Maama said.