St. Vincent and the Grenadines is reported to be one of the worse defaulters of payments to the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Pharmaceutical Procurement Service (PPS) for medicines obtained.

This was disclosed by Mr. Francis Burnett, Head of Unit at the OECS/Pharmaceutical Procurement Service during his presentation yesterday morning at a seminar held at the Methodist Church Hall, in Kingstown, focused on updating the SVG Essential Medicines list.

The seminar was hosted by the Pharmacy and Therapeutic Committee, and the Ministry of Health, Wellness and the Environment, in collaboration with the Non Communicable Disease Focal Point and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

“We have a big problem in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Getting monies from the treasury to finance medicines and health care in this country will never ever make it. I could guarantee you this,” Mr. Burnette said.

“To meet our demands we need some degree of automaticity, we need some form of health insurance where the working population pay for the entire population.”

“We just cannot do it… and therefore the demands, more and more patients are going to the primary health care to get the prescriptions filled as opposed to going to the private sector pharmacy,” he added.

Mr. Burnett explained that St. Vincent and the Grenadines in terms of defaulting on paying for supplies procured from the OECS/PPS “is one of the worse defaulters of payment in the entire OECS countries.”

He noted that the gap when it comes to making payments is getting bigger and bigger and needs to be addressed.

According to Mr. Burnett, consideration may have to be given to instituting some form of National Health Insurance to finance the public health care needs of this country.

The Head of Unit at the OECS/Pharmaceutical Procurement Service said that for the last financial year 2016-2017, at the OECS level the data shows that about $24 million was spent on purchase of medicines.

He said that after St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines had the biggest expenditure of buying medicines through the OECS/PPS.

Mr. Burnett explained that contractually, countries are obligated to pay suppliers 60 days after the goods are received in port, however, OECS countries are defaulting in paying suppliers, with St. Vincent and the Grenadines and the British Virgin Islands (BVI) taking approximately 160 days to do so.

He said they have agreed at the OECS level that focused discussions need to be held with officials from specific countries including St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and Dominica.

According to Mr. Burnett, the government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines allocates monies quarterly for the reimbursement of goods, but the reimbursement is not coming at the end of the quarter and the quantum is less than what is required.

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