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Infrastructure & Systems Building
| Sowedi Muyingo, VP - Global Access & Drug Logistics |
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“The condition of the infrastructure and management systems supporting health services is probably the single most important element in determining their ability to meet people’s needs. Poor facilities and systems will compromise treatment even if the best drugs are available. Everywhere we go today in the developing world we find shortages of laboratories and equipment to carry out diagnosis of disease and monitoring of treatment. Facilities operate with irregular power supplies or no electricity at all, meaning they cannot properly store drugs or computerize their records. Health staff lack critical skills. And health facilities lack effective management systems for the procurement, safe storage and distribution of drugs. This has serious implications for diseases such as HIV/AIDS and diabetes when it leads to stock-outs and interruption of treatment. A major challenge for countries is that few donors are interested in infrastructure development . So we need to promote novel financing systems that will work to interest different donors in different parts of the picture: one donor may be prepared to invest in lab equipment, for instance, and another in setting up IT systems. In all our work with countries, the Axios philosophy is to strengthen and build on what already exists rather than starting from scratch and setting up new, parallel structures. Another key principle is to work in collaboration with governments and other national partners. Both principles are vital to ensuring that the programs we build are sustainable into the future. Axios has developed a wide range of tools to assist countries. These include a computerized stock management system that reduces paperwork and allows both pharmacy and clinic staff to access patients’ drug records; tools to track and manage patients throughout their treatment; and systems to develop socio-economic profiles of countries wishing to start a treatment access program, as well as to assess the capacity of individual patients to pay for drugs. These tools have been used already in scores of countries. We always work with systems as a whole, rather than doing things piecemeal, because everything is interlinked: if you fix one element at a time, without understanding or addressing the larger picture, the system still may not work. Now we are creating links across the world too, building relationships between medical specialists in the developing and developed world that will allow those working in tough conditions and with limited resources to draw on support and guidance to manage their most difficult cases. Attending to infrastructure and systems is a painstaking business. It is not the most glamorous aspect of development work, but it is vital to our success.” |
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