Assessment of magnitude of medicines wastage and the contributing factors in selected public health facilities of Hadiya Zone, Central Ethiopia Regional State.

BACKGROUND

Medicine wastage occurs when medicines are damaged, obsolete, or expired and become unsafe for use. In Ethiopia, although there are reports that reveal the presence of wasted medicines in the country, there is limited objective evidence on the type and extent of medicine wastage as well as its contributing factors.

OBJECTIVE

The study aimed to assess the medicine wastage rate and identify its contributing factors in the sampled public health facilities (HFs) in Hadiya Zone, Central Ethiopia Regional State.

METHOD

A facility-based cross-sectional study complemented by a qualitative study was conducted in selected public HFs in Hadiya Zone, Central Ethiopia Regional State, from November 1 to 31, 2022. All the hospitals were selected intentionally, and health centers were selected using simple random sampling techniques. For the qualitative study, the chief clinical officers and pharmacy department heads of HFs were purposefully selected as key informants because they were supposed to be more information-rich than other health professionals. The quantitative data were entered and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 20.

RESULT

The total monetary value of wasted medicines in the assessed HFs in the Ethiopian Fiscal Year (EFY) 2011-2013 was 652,479.45 ETB (5.24%). The three-year trend showed that, in the 2011-2012-2013 EFY, medicine wastage was 7.57%, 6.44%, and 3.1%, respectively. Expiration solely accounted for 97.3% of this total value. The alleged explanations for the waste of such medicines were a lack of accurate data available for medicine quantifications, the presence of overstocked medicines due to improper forecasting, a lack of electronic stock management, an abrupt change in the treatment regimen, and improper use of stock management. Whether the perceived causes had an impact on the medicine wastage was assessed, and the results confirmed that a significant association between medicine wastage and overstock (p-value = 0.006, AOR = 8.57, 95% CI = 1.87-39.26), accurate data (p-value = 0.013, AOR = 5.43, 95% CI = 1.42-20.76), and electronic stock management (p-value = 0.05, AOR = 0.311, 95% CI = 0.094-1.03) was observed.

CONCLUSION

The identified medicine wastage rate is significant for a nation that struggles to allocate limited resources fairly. It may negatively affect the initiatives taken by the government to increase public engagement in the healthcare system through insurance contributions. It is a glance for HFs to take immediate corrective action.