By Martha Louise – EMTV News, Madang
A shortage of prescription medication has led to patients from the Madang Town Clinic being asked to purchase from commercial pharmacies.
Madang Town Clinic, Sister in Charge, Judy Alingou, says for two weeks now, they have no medicine in the storeroom to treat their patients.
The clinic looks after its catchment population of at least 18, 000 people but the clinic also sees patients outside of its catchment population area. The clinic sees at least 100 patients a day.
Two weeks ago, a notice was put out by the officers informing patients that the clinic has no medicine in stock and will provide prescriptions only.
Snr Alingou says the notice was put up so that patients who can afford to buy their own medicines at the pharmacy can still go to the clinic to get prescriptions.
The officer-in-charge of the town laboratory, Barbara Sombary, says the clinic also needs new equipment to carry out other tests. She is currently limited to doing blood tests for Malaria only.
Sombary says at times, patients with very severe conditions go to the clinic for treatment, but with no means of helping the patients, they can only make referrals.
