RM1.5m in medical supplies stolen by hospital staff

Hospital staff regularly steal medicines and pharmaceutical supplies for personal use, a report finds.

PETALING JAYA: Stealing medicines and pharmaceutical supplies is disturbingly rife among hospital staff, with Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL) and Penang Hospital coughing up losses of RM1.5 million in 2013.

The Sun found that Panadol (a brand of paracetamol), cotton swabs and bandages, among others were regularly stolen by hospital staff for personal use, with reasons ranging from the need to treat sick relatives to simply stocking up on their personal medicine supply at home.

“Due action can and will be taken if anyone is found taking any item without a valid prescription or some form of consent from their superiors,” Director-General of the Ministry of Health, Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah was quoted by the English daily as saying in response to queries.




He added that criminal offences would be reported to the police.

The latest report by the Auditor-General in 2013 tagged these losses as being “inside jobs” and a pharmacist at a government hospital suggested to The Sun that the errant personnel were taking advantage of a loophole in the manually filled records.

“The main pharmacy, which doubles as a store, usually has a computerised system to record details of the stocks received from suppliers, while the smaller pharmacies in the hospital use logbooks, as only some hospitals are fully computerised,” the pharmacist told the daily on condition of anonymity.

“We don’t calculate the quantity of tablets and smaller items like Panadol. However, there is a book to fill up for blood pressure medicines.”

Noor Hisham said that healthcare facilities have store inventory systems which were subjected to regular audits and checks.




“All medicines are dispensed via prescriptions for in-and-out patients. Facilities without IT systems use bin cards and some have to use logbooks to record drug movements,” he said.

Noor Hisham noted that only Hospital Putrajaya, Hospital Serdang, Hospital Sungai Buloh and Hospital Muar had IT systems in place, up to the dispensing level.

The Health Ministry is currently in the process of implementing the Pharmacy Information System, likely to be launched in December this year, so medicines can be tallied at the dispensing level.




-FMT NEWS-