Drug Service new refrigerated truck to deliver meds

n island-wide medicine delivery service is being planned for Barbadians who are unable to readily commute to and from pharmacies and clinics to obtain their medication, the acting director of the Barbados Drug Service Delores Mascoll has announced.

And a refrigerated truck, handed over Monday to the Barbados Drug Service from India – making the completion of the USD$675 000 Government of India-funded grant project under the India-UN Development Partnership Fund to enhance the health security and service delivery in Barbados – will launch the new service, she told a ceremony at the drug service’s Warrens offices.

No timeline for the rollout of the drug delivery service was immediately available.

Mascoll announced the new vehicle will target people with a disability.

“This vehicle has been earmarked for several important tasks, which would improve the provision of pharmaceutical services,” she explained. “These include but are not limited to the establishment of a delivery service; this is something that we have been looking at for quite a while, especially for persons who have been in some way unable to attend the pharmacy, be it through disability or visual impairment. We want to have this free service for those persons to improve their care.”

A mobile pharmacy educational programme is also planned, Mascoll said.

“There are areas of Barbados where there is no government clinic, and for those areas, we want to institute a programme where our pharmacists can go into the community and liaise with patients. In the clinics, sometimes because there are so many patients to be seen, it is difficult to have that one-on-one with patients where you can counsel them and advise them on how best to use their medicines.

“So we are looking at using the vehicle on a schedule to take it into those areas and have that one-on-one with patients to improve their care.”

The vehicle will also be used in emergencies, the drug service chief said.

“Some of our clinics are in areas where they would have to be evacuated should there be for instance a storm surge. So one of the things we have looked at for this vehicle is to pack it with essential medicines, such that if we had to move that clinic, we could still offer some level of medical services to the persons who have been impacted.”

The refrigerated truck is a first for the Barbados Drug Service. It will transport temperature controlled drugs to the island’s 15 drug centres. Previously, the drugs were transported in iceboxes.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health Wayne Marshall praised the Indian government’s generosity, stating that the contribution represents one element of a larger scheme that has seen other pieces of medical equipment provided.

“I wish to remind you that the truck is the final deliverable of the project which has already seen an injection of 107 pieces of medical equipment, valued at just over $1.3 million. This equipment benefitted medical centres across the island; the equipment included servers, a handheld spectrometer, vital signs monitors, nebulisers, thermal printers, and a mobile X-ray machine, just to name a few.

“The objective of the project is to provide the government of Barbados, through the India-UN Fund and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with medical equipment to strengthen the Barbadian health system in the transitional period of the COVID-19 recovery. The ministry is therefore eternally grateful to our strategic partner, the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), for providing the project management and procurement services, and directing the entire procurement process.”

India’s High Commissioner Dr Shankar Balachandran,noted that his government is currently considering another such project aimed at the island’s small and medium-sized firms (SMEs).

“This commitment to bilateral partnership extends beyond healthcare, as India has proposed grant funding for five Quick Impact projects, each valued at US$50 000, and another US$1 million grant for procurement of machinery to help the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and proposals received from Barbados are already under consideration for implementation.

“Under a US$1 million grant, a project submitted by the Government of Barbados – Local Content Development in Energy Industry value chain – of US$550 000 is also nearing its completion.”