He said currently they had not received any more complaints about the supply chain and have implemented interventions including changing suppliers and recommending the use of alternative medications where possible.
“Where supply constraints are identified, the department works with the provinces to identify and implement alternative interventions to minimise stockouts and impact on patients,” Mohale said.
The survey also shows that nurses who were interviewed said they tried their best to help patients, with 58% advising people to switch birth control methods if their preferred contraceptive was not available.
But researchers warned that switching contraceptives could have negative consequences on women’s health due to the effects on their hormones while warning that shortages could lead to unwanted pregnancies.
Section27 researcher Baone Twala told Sowetan that healthcare workers themselves were frustrated because they had no knowledge of why a certain medication was running out.
Twala said they had shared the data collected through interviews with 15,750 patients across 403 public health facilities with provincial health departments in hopes of getting answers on what was causing the issues on the ground but they did not receive feedback.
“Everything else is in place including laws and policies but in terms of people, contraceptives on the ground is a problem. Somewhere in the administrative process, something is going wrong,” she said.
She said failure to address the problem would mean that the government is not prioritising the lives of women and girls across the country. Two provinces were not included in the report – the Northern Cape and Western Cape.
Twala said they decided to exclude the Northern Cape as the sample there was very small, while the Western Cape refused access to conduct monitoring in its facilities.
The report also makes recommendations for the government to come up with a plan and guidelines to ensure that existing policy protecting women’s sexual reproductive rights is implemented properly.
mahopoz@sowetan.co.za
Hundreds of women across SA negatively impacted by lack of access to contraceptives
Production shortages create birth control medications stockouts
Image: 123RF
A shortage of pharmaceutical ingredients and production delays are among the reasons public health facilities in SA experienced periods of birth control medication stockouts this year.
This is according to the national health department in response to a new survey detailing how patients from seven provinces experienced a shortage of contraceptives.
One of the key findings of the research conducted by Stop Stockouts Project* (SSP) and the Ritshidze Project was that contraceptives constituted the majority of medications that went out of stock between April and June 2022. These included pills, implants, injectable birth control and pregnancy tests.
About 1,018 patients said they were left without medication due to shortages including 200 in the Free State, 208 in Gauteng and 135 in Mpumalanga. Of those, 387 said they did not get contraceptives with injections making up 284 of the stockouts followed by birth control pills at 72 across the seven provinces.
Spokesman for the national health department, Foster Mohale, said they had received reports from suppliers regarding problems with production during the period the data was collected.
“These challenges included active pharmaceutical ingredient shortages, production delays, and quality control issues. This was reported for both tablets and implants. Additionally, the contract for one of the implants was ceded from one supplier to another, which resulted in further interruptions in supply,” Mohale said.
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He said currently they had not received any more complaints about the supply chain and have implemented interventions including changing suppliers and recommending the use of alternative medications where possible.
“Where supply constraints are identified, the department works with the provinces to identify and implement alternative interventions to minimise stockouts and impact on patients,” Mohale said.
The survey also shows that nurses who were interviewed said they tried their best to help patients, with 58% advising people to switch birth control methods if their preferred contraceptive was not available.
But researchers warned that switching contraceptives could have negative consequences on women’s health due to the effects on their hormones while warning that shortages could lead to unwanted pregnancies.
Section27 researcher Baone Twala told Sowetan that healthcare workers themselves were frustrated because they had no knowledge of why a certain medication was running out.
Twala said they had shared the data collected through interviews with 15,750 patients across 403 public health facilities with provincial health departments in hopes of getting answers on what was causing the issues on the ground but they did not receive feedback.
“Everything else is in place including laws and policies but in terms of people, contraceptives on the ground is a problem. Somewhere in the administrative process, something is going wrong,” she said.
She said failure to address the problem would mean that the government is not prioritising the lives of women and girls across the country. Two provinces were not included in the report – the Northern Cape and Western Cape.
Twala said they decided to exclude the Northern Cape as the sample there was very small, while the Western Cape refused access to conduct monitoring in its facilities.
The report also makes recommendations for the government to come up with a plan and guidelines to ensure that existing policy protecting women’s sexual reproductive rights is implemented properly.
mahopoz@sowetan.co.za
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