6th NU paper by Blue Tiger MD

6^th NU12 Paper – Professionalism (New work, methods, practices):

GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL PROCUREMENT IN THE FAST LANE

Submitted by: thebluetigerMD

February 14, 2013

MBAH – 10B

Entrepreneurship – Class H04

In a government hospital where I am part of, procurement of supplies and medicines are bound by RA 9184, or the Procurement Act. To purchase a desired supply, there must be a procurement plan, approved budget, set of specifications in the purchase request, and a lot more of required documents. A request for a rim of bond paper would have at least 10 supporting documents, wopuld pass through at least 5 offices, need a minimum of 7 signatures, and would result in around 3-4 weeks before the supply of bond paper arrives.

Although this tedious procurement process is prescribed by law, it does have undesirable effects when it comes to turn-around times, which usually leads to out of stock supplies. The time it takes to route the requisition through the offices and to obtain the signatures would really extend the procurement process, not to mention delays from the supplier side when they fail to submit necessary documents. But the law dictates that the process be followed. So what to do?

I sincerely believe that government hospitals should have different procurement guidelines than what is prescribed by law. The initial procurement law was designed for infrastructure projects, where the timeframe for completion is given considerable amount of time.

But in hospitals where lives are at stake, procurement should be on the fast lane. We cannot have times where emergency medicines run out of stock, because the deliveries of supplies have been delayed due to technical problems in the procurement process.

Therefore, amendments to RA 9184 should be made, specifically when it comes to government hospitals and the purchase of life-saving medicines. There should be clear provisions that will allow hospitals to choose and purchase vital medicines and supplies in the shortest amount of time possible, skipping some unimportant steps in the usual procurement process. In the unfortunate event that a supply runs out, mechanisms in the procurement law should be in place that would allow the hospital to procure the said item within the same day.

Lastly, provisions in the procurement law should be made to allow government hospitals to procure QUALITY materials and supplies, even if they have not given the lowest bid price. Cheap medicines and medical supplies, which usually win the bidding process, usually have quality issues, which become more expensive to handle in the long run. 4