E-drug: What motivates drug donations? (cont'd)
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Dear Colleagues,
It is with some misgivings that I enter the debate on donations that
has been filling our files with increasingly long messages. Anecdotal
reports are not always helpful, but I am going to tell you a story all the
same.
Not too long ago I was working in a hospital in Pakistan and a charity
wished to make a substantial donation to the hospital. This was to be
in kind rather than money for reasons that were never clearly
explained to me. When I was informed that a plane load of medicines
(I said it was substantial) was about to be sent and could we arrange
to get swift clearance through customs etc, I responded that before
anything was sent I needed to know the medicine, the manufacturer,
the batch number, the expiry date, the presentation, and the quantity.
To say that I was unpopular is a gross understatement, but I stuck to
my position and politely informed the relative officials that without the
information I would not even unpack the load.
The upshot was that the donation never arrived. I don't know, but I
strongly suspect that a lot of it would not meet my (fairly strict)
standards, but it could also be that the hospital lost out on a
substantial bonus. We will never know for certain and I still sometimes
wonder if was right - that wonderful thing called hindsight. Now the
question is how could I have reported that? No hard evidence. To get
hard evidence I would have had to receive the donation unpacked it
catalogued it and written up the problem. Even the time and effort to
do that were too scarce to spend in that way, but the political fall-out
was unthinkable - it was bad enough for my first action!
Reporting by recipients is not a practical suggestion. Strengthening
control and the donation is possible and practical. On the simple basis
that prevention is better than cure, it also seems sensible.
Tim Dodd
Training Advisor
Ghana national Drugs Programme
Email: Cath_and_Tim_Dodd@compuserve.com
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