ANALYSING PHARMACY DISPENSING SYSTEMS PROPOSAL

Access to medications, especially for those drugs that are linked to the primary healthcare needs of a nation has been considered as an essential aspect of universal health, as well as a vital element for ensuring quality health care and efficient service delivery. Thus, ensuring that a country’s pharmacy dispensing system guarantees reliable supply and access to affordable, safe, and effective medicines is key in guaranteeing an efficient healthcare system. With South Africa being faced with a sustained increase in demand for medicine, especially for chronic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, as well as HIV/AIDS, its pharmacy dispensing systems and access to medication have received significant national attention. Nonetheless, it was estimated in 2016 that more than one-third of South Africa’s population, particularly those who live in rural areas, have no regular access to medication. This is further compounded by the fact that South Africa has a high prevalence of HIV, diabetes, and other chronic diseases with more than 7.1 million people affected by HIV alone. Internationally, there is a shortage of comprehensive country-level proof to influence policy responses, in addition to insufficient comprehension of how pharmacy-dispensing systems work within the larger healthcare system. In this research, a situational analysis is carried out concerning the state and structure of pharmacy dispensing in the public sector in rural South Africa. Thus, the study’s aim is to, using critical systems heuristics (CSH), current structures of pharmacy dispensing in rural areas in South Africa