A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree
of Master of Science in Health Monitoring and Evaluation (HME) of Mzumbe
University
In response to the problem of shortage and wastage of essential medicines, Tanzania
introduced the supply chain system for reporting and requesting medicines and other
medical supplies to the respective Government owned health facilities called integrated
logistics system, despite ILS introduction the health facilities have continued to face the
same problem. This evaluation study was intended to evaluate the effect of Integrated
Logistics System activities and their contribution to essential medicines availability in
the selected 11 Health Facilities in Mbeya City Council. The specific objectives
were(i)To determine the stock status of essential medicine for the past 12 months and on
the day of assessment.( ii)To examine the extent to which integrated logistics system
activities i.e records keeping, store management, filling report and request forms are
implemented as designed (iii) To explore factors influencing the implementation of
integrated logistics system(iv)To examine the contribution of integrated logistics system
activities i.e records keeping, report submission time, filling report and request forms on
essential medicine availability.
The study employed explorative and descriptive study design where by both quantitative
and qualitative methods of data collection were used. The study findings revealed that
though the facilities had shortage of essential medicines (Tracer medicines) on average
the availability on the day of assessment was found to be 87%, for the period 2015/2016
was 78% and for July 2016 to March 2017 was 92% which show improvement on
availability compared to 2014 HMIS data which was 70% availability. The results
suggested that ILS activities implementation as designed had an effect on essential
medicines availability to health facilities. Its activities implementation depend on each
other and if implemented as designed can contribute to the availability of essential
medicines though other factors like availability of fund and medicines at MSD needs to
be checked on which did not included in this study. The result found that ILS activities
were not implemented as designed by the most of health facilities and this challenge had
to be rectified by MoHCDGEC, Regional and district level together with their facilities.