The Commission On Audit Noted A Few Things At BuCor
COA – The Commission on Audit (COA) notes the overstock of medicine that worths P15.5 million and poor catering services for inmates.
Despite of whatever charges they face, inmates are being taken care of in prison. The department always makes sure that the inmates as well, by checking up on their health from time to time.
However, since there are too many people behind bars, it has been difficult to keep track of their health and well-being. 60 Bacolod City inmates had diarrhea.
A notice was raised by the Commission on Audit for Bureau of Corrections (BuCor).
Reportedly, there is an overstock in medicine supply that amounts to up to 15.5 million pesos. They also mentioned about the poor catering service that could possibly be a health hazard for the inmates.
This is applicable to inmates from National Bilibid Prison (NBP) and Correctional Institute For Women (CIW),
Lack of proper planning and poorly decided prioritizations for drugs and medicine lead the BuCor to buy much more drugs than the actual needed, ending up with an overstock. This is from a 2018 audit.
COA expressed their dismay and explained how the security acern
“Apparently, actual demand of patients were not considered in the procurement of drugs and medicines, resulting in excess procurement in the aggregate amount of P15,501,612.25. This is a manifestation of a clear disregard of the actual needs of patients or purchases of the same even without the need/basis to purchase.”
Purchasing of drugs and medicines should be guided by the categories high or low priority items. These are determined basing on BuCor’s inventory and safety standards.
For instance, an example overstocked product is Verapamil. BuCor took 99,300 supplies of tablets but only used 3,450 were given to the inmates the entire year.
This is according to an article from GMA News.
Also reported, the COA mentioned that the P55.86 million worth of drugs and medicine bought back in 2018 and 2017 for the NBP Hostpital and CIW Reception and Diagnostic Center went beyond the set limit.
That is all there is to it, at least for now. We’ll post updates as soon as we got them.
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