Medicine Supply Chain of the Public Healthcare System in the Punjab
Muhammad Naiman Jalil
Suleman Dawood School of Business, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan
Wafa Malik, Areeb Javaid, and Ali Jan Khan
Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department, Government of the Punjab, Pakistan
Volume 12: 2018, pp. 5-44; ABSTRACT
The Primary and Secondary Healthcare Department (P&SHD), Government of the Punjab, is responsible for providing free of cost public healthcare services within the Punjab province. P&SHD manages a hierarchically organised network of almost three thousand primary and secondary healthcare facilities throughout the Punjab. This case highlights the issue of medicine availability in the Punjab healthcare network. The medicine inventories at these facilities are maintained as per the National Essential Drugs List. These medicines are centrally procured in accordance with the applicable procurement and financial regulations. Suppliers deliver medicines to the designated facilities according to the delivery terms agreed upon in the procurement contract. The purpose of this case is to observe how such a complex inventory system is organised within a public-sector entity which operates under strict procurement and financial regulations. The case also aims to highlight the importance of the systematic alignment of demand forecasting, procurement and distribution functions for efficient functioning of the medicine inventory system.
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