Like most institutions and organizations that have been hit by the covid-19 pandemic, National Medical stores too hasn’t been spared given the fact that they embarked on building a new stores facility in 2017 based in Kajjansi, off Entebbe-Kampala highway.
According to Paul Okware, the Chief Stores and Operations Officer at National Medical Stores revealed during a tour of the new warehouse by the Members of Parliament on the Health committee on Tuesday that because of the Covid-19 pandemic, they (NMS) has had to revise the completion date of the new structure.
National Medical Stores commenced the construction of the new structure in July 2017 but because of the covid-19 pandemic, we have had to revise the completion date to end of 2021. The pandemic made it difficult to have the technicians from abroad to come and install, train the staff and qualify the equipment. Complant Uganda, the company that was contracted to build the new warehouse also suffered very heavily from covid-19 pandemic, some of their staff contracted the disease and they even lost their Managing director to the pandemic, a new managing director from Beijing will be arriving in Uganda and we expect the work to start soon and see how the project can be completed, Okware said.
He added;
After completion, National Medical stores will shift it’s entire head office and operations from Entebbe to Kajjansi and Entebbe will serve as a branch. We (NMS) are expanding because we want to have sufficient capacity to store drugs but also to expand space so that our efficiency can improve. We want to reduce ordering time, the time it takes to placing an order and delivering should reduce and we also want to improve the accuracy of order processing as well. The new warehouse in Kajjansi has been fitted with technology and many of the systems will be automated because NMS is in the process of implementing of NMS+ new integrated Enterprise resource planning software and we shall see significant reductions in the amount of paper being used since work will be done online.
According to Okware, the overall progress of the new warehouse is at 93 percent and only 7 percent is remaining.
The building is done but the contract includes equipping, installation and training of staff. Everything is on site including furniture and equipment. The new warehouse has been fitted among others with solar systems, central vaccine store, vehicle garage, gym, day care and we are installing an oxygen plant, Okware revealed.
The total cost for the construction of the new warehouse is 69 billion (Uganda Shillings) with Global fund contributing 28 billion (Uganda Shillings) and Government of Uganda contributing 41 billion (Uganda Shillings).
