Quito –
The government will implement a control mechanism for the acquisition of medicines in the public health network, which according to their figures, will generate savings of $ 400 million.
On a national network broadcast this Tuesday morning, the director of the National Public Procurement Service (Sercop), Silvana Vallejo, announced the implementation of the Unified System for the Purchase of Medicines and Strategic Assets for the health sector, which will consist of “proper management of distribution, storage, unit dose system for medicines”, with the aim of consolidating the purchase in “one system”.
With this system, the authorities will know what the route of the medications is, from the moment the doctor prescribes a patient. Know “where the medicines are, when they were consumed, and this will be done through a consolidated purchase that the public health network will do, in a corporate tender for medicines.”
He said that this will avoid buying too many drugs, or at the same time, that there is a shortage.
‘Savings, quality and efficiency’
The new president of the Board of Directors of the Ecuadorian Social Security Institute (IESS), Jorge Wated, who assured that this tool will save the State $ 400 million, and will ensure that there is “quality and efficiency” in the health system.
He took the opportunity to refer to the events of the last hours in which irregularities are reported in the purchase of bags for the packaging of corpses for $ 148 per unit, which the Los Ceibos hospital in Guayaquil had been doing, and that after investigations by the Attorney General The first four people were detained.
“It is a shame that in the midst of the pandemic we have people thinking of wanting to buy items at values of more than 1000% of their real cost, and this unified system will allow us to have permanent medicines, which are not expired, that there is a distribution adequate, “Wated stressed.
The Minister of Public Health, Juan Carlos Zevallos, who also participated in the chain, insisted that this will allow for transparent purchasing processes and will be a “blow to speculation”.
This new mechanism will be made official through an executive decree that will be issued by the president. Lenin Moreno, in the next few hours. (I)
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