Here is a quick and easy way to report and get action.
The Stop Stock Outs Project (SSP) is an independent civil society consortium that monitors availability of essential medicines in public sector facilities across South Africa.
Patients — how do you report a stock out of medicines or equipment (e.g. syringes, oxygen)?
Have you had this happen to you or a family member?
-You were turned away from your clinic and referred elsewhere
-You’ve been given an insufficient supply of medication
-Your treatment was changed because the medicine you usually take isn’t available
Then contact SSP by:
-Sending a Please Call Me OR SMS OR Phone 084 855 7867
-Send an email to [email protected]
-Go to www.stockouts.co.za/report
We only want the name of the medicine that is out of stock and the name of the clinic or hospital you visited. WE DON’T WANT YOUR NAME – it’s confidential.
Health care workers – how do you monitor stock outs at your facility?
Help to monitor stock outs at your facility by signing up to be a sentinel surveyor: You will get a SMS or email each month to ask you to report on any stock outs or shortages at your facility. Here is how to enrol:
-Go to www.stockouts.co.za/surveyor
-Mobile Browsers: www.surveyor.questionpro.com
It is anonymous so we don’t need your name.
Medicine stock outs can be life-threatening
Over the years, SSP consortium members dealt with stock out reports on a makeshift basis, with patients and health care workers alike reporting medicine supply issues at their facilities. Patients experience the persistent plague of essential medication stock outs which may be life-threatening.
The consortium members combined their efforts and together as civil society’s response to the chronic shortages and stock outs of essential medicines across the South Africa. And so the SSP was born. It very practically helps patients in their thousands.
Don’t delay report any essential medicine shortages or stock outs at any government run clinic or hospital. When you contact the SSP to report a stock out/shortage the information is documented. A case is opened to track the stock out from the time it was reported until the stock out/shortage is resolved and the medicine is available again at the facility. Confidentiality is ensured. Even better, you can track the progress of your report on the website. That is an A+ for transparency.
Watchdog for essential medicines supply
As a “watchdog” the SSP communicates with the right people: the provincial and national departments of health and other stakeholders such as drug companies. It makes sure that shortages and stock outs are responded to and resolved ASAP. By reporting and investigating stock outs and shortages, the causes of supply chain breakdowns are identified and steps are taken to strengthen and improve the system going forward.
This important universal access to quality care is supported by PHANGO and the SA NCD Alliance. The SA NCD Alliance is working with SSP to make the noncommunicable diseases reporting more effective.
The consortium of these well respected organisations:
