Martin Endjala
Long queues and unbearable waiting hours are a thing of the past, as patients on chronic medication can now collect their medicines via Pelebox.
The new service is available to all eligible patients with controlled viral loads for example, at the discretion of their health doctors or practitioners and will be accessible at 19 public health facilities countrywide.
This is according to the Ministry of Health and Social Services Chief Clinical Mentor, Jacques Kamangu, during a talk show on National TV this week.
The Pelebox will be officially launched next week Tuesday at the Katutura Intermediate State Hospital by the Health and Social Services Minister, Kalumbi Shangula.
The Pelebox is a Smart Locker that alerts patients that their medicine is ready for collection via a text message. The system enables patients with chronic conditions to pick up their regular medicine in minutes instead of waiting hours for overstretched healthcare staff to dispense it.
Kamangu said that the system is user-friendly, as it only requires your cellphone number and an OTP pin which is sent to you by the Pharmacy as per your medication collection date, ones you punch in your number and pin, your details will be displayed on the monitor and the Pelebox will automatically open, with your package labelled your name on and the medicine inside will also have your name on, to avoid mix-ups and for security reasons.
An automatic notification is then sent to the Pharmacy that you have collected your medication and the process repeats itself for all patients.
Pharmacists will punch in medications via barcodes for every patient which will then register in the system, medications will be given either for three or six to 12 months for patients, however, if there is a shortage of medicines, patients will be notified and issued with a certain amount of medication example one or two months, while waiting for stock up.
There is also a fixated monitoring camera at the Pelebox, for security reasons, and also for cases, if a patient claims they have not collected their medication but the system indicates that they have, the camera will then be used in these incidents to determine the truth, and the patient will be assisted accordingly.
Meanwhile, the Acting Director of Pharmaceutical in the MoHSS Sieja Nakahmela reassured patients that her team are fully trained to carry out this new innovation and ready to help any patient who prefers to receive their medication the old fashion way.
She, however, noted that given that the new system is still new, patients are registered within the regions they reside within, meaning should you travel to another region, the system might not work for you, however, there are provisions put in place to ensure that such patients get their medication before travelling, thus urging patients to visit their nearest health centres to notify their doctors of their travelling for the timely arrangement of a collection of their medications.
The Pelebox has a long-life battery in case of an electricity blackout, which can last up to two weeks, the system has also made provision to open off all Peleboxes for pharmacists and issue medications to patients, in case of malfunctions, although it is not forecasted to happen, the hand collection is another way to ensure patients collects their prescriptions.
Meanwhile, the Centres for Disease Control Health systems and sustainability team leader Hilaria Ashivudhi said that the Pelebox has already been in play, with its neighbouring sister country South Africa and Namibia can learn a lot from the positive results South Africa has yielded so far.
She further emphasised that CDC in collaboration with Namibia and its global partners are always hard at work in ensuring that medications are procured on time and there are strategies in place to avoid medication from running out.
In Windhoek, the Pelebox will be placed at the Katutura Black Chain Referral Health Clinic, Khomasdal Clinic and Katutura State Hospital.
The collection of prescriptions often takes hours out of a patient’s day and is compounded by the costs of transportation as well as lost wages.
This further exacerbates the impact of illness on the patient’s daily life. But with most of Africa’s population relying on the public healthcare system, these delays are inevitable. In fact, it is reported that up to 70 percent of a facility’s daily prescription tasks are devoted to serving repeat prescriptions.
