By: Kebba AF Touray
The National Audit Office (NAO) said Farafenni General Hospital (FGH) discarded expired drugs at the health facility.
The office said it observed this development during a follow-up visit to the hospital.
NAO officials made this disclosure during their appearance before the Finance and Public Accounts Committee (FPAC), for an interface with the committee and management of FGH, for the presentations of the activity reports and financial statements of the hospital from 2016 to 2021.
The NAO said: “During the pharmacy store verification, we noted that the hospital isolated some of the expired drugs and parked them under the veranda of the pharmacy store exposed and can be tampered with by passers-by.”
The auditors added that the management should ensure that a proper storage facility is created for the expired drugs and also liaise with the relevant authorities in order to discard or dispose the expired drugs from the hospital.
The audit office, however, said that “we confirmed the evidence and noted that the situation has been regularized”.
The NAO also recommended the management of FGH to ensure that all the expired drugs are removed from the hospital pharmacy and kept as required by the Standard Operating Procedures.
The NAO said: “We reviewed the report provided for our review and noted that the situation has been regularized.”
“On our follow-up, issues such as withholding tax, non- disclosures of fraud cases were implemented, whilst accounting manual and training policy were not implemented.”
As reported by the audit regarding the follow-up on the previous audit, issues such as lack of petty cash and improper maintenance of the donation register, recording of donated assets, private receipt books were implemented.
However, NAO stated that issues such as board allowance, approval of staff allowance, staff longevity, budgetary process and financial reporting framework were not implemented.
