Assessing the impact of health centre management committees in curbing drug pilferage and promoting public service delivery: A case of Chitipa district
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Date
2020-12-01
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Kamuzu University of Health Sciences
Abstract
Chitipa District Hospital registers high numbers of drug cases due to pilferage despite the
availability of Health Centre Management Committees (HCMC). One of the key responsibilities
of HCMCs is to monitor drug and supply chain at both facility and community level. This comes
against the background that 15% of the stock outs at Chitipa Distric Hospital were due to drug
pilferage in 2018. At national level, millions of drug funds are lost every year due to drug
pilferage. However, since the introduction of the national drug investigation unit (DTIU) in
2017, drug theft cases have declined and most perpetrators were apprehended. Focus Group
Discussions and Key Informant interviews were used to collect data in five facilities in Chitipa.
A total of 100 (48 males, 52 females) participated in the study. Of these thirty (11 males, 19
females) were members of Health Centre Management Committee and ten (4 males, 6 females)
were local leaders. The rest that took part in the focus group discussions were community
members affiliated to HCMC committees. Lack of Information among community members is
one factor contributing to poor functionality of the Health Centre management committees. What
is clearly emanating from this research is that grassroots’ participation in Chitipa District council
is a farfetched idea because local elites are exploiting the new found window of opportunity in
the decentralization initiative to promote patronage and neopatriomonism at the expense of the
grassroots participation in decision-making. The study could not establish strength of association
between the factors identified and the functionality of the HCMCs. The findings highlight the
importance of using the socio-ecological model in community engagement so as to identify and
address factors at every level.