Kzn Mec Says Medicine Shortages At State Health Facilities Rectified

KwaZulu-Natal Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane has admitted that her department could not procure medicine in December and January due to budget cuts.

However, Simelane denies that there are widespread medicine shortages at provincial state healthcare facilities.

This comes after the provincial ActionSA leader Zwakele Mncwango supplied a list of facilities with medicine shortages to the premier.

Simelane says due to budget cuts, her department has resorted to taking turns in paying suppliers until the end of this month, which is also the end of the financial year.

"So yes, at some point you would find that there is a challenge, and there was one or two companies that decided to withhold their medication because they have not been paid. But that has been sorted. Now we dont have a challenge of shortage of medication. A week or so ago we even went to our depot because as the department, we have a depot where we keep the medication and we took a video to show, that was showing communities that there is no problem."