The District Chief Executive of Bunkpurugu-Nakpanduri in the North East Region, Joseph Louknaan, has debunked claims that health centres in Bunkpurugu risk being shut down due to the unavailability of drugs and other medical supplies.

This comes on the back of some reports indicating that the district health centres lacked equipment and medical supplies to carry on with their activities, and might shut down.

Reacting to the claims, the DCE indicated that the management of health centres in the area is working on procuring additional medical equipment.

“It is not true that they are about to shut down. The facilities do not allow people to buy medications outside, aside from the regional medical stores. When they send their request, it is online, so the regional medical stores apply, so they are not supposed to get medicine anywhere.”

“According to the Health Director, they sent a request and although the response was delayed, they received most of the items they requested for and will distribute them by Friday to all the health facilities in the district.”

He further indicated that there was a misconception pertaining to the health facilities not having equipment to carry out their duty of treating patients.

The District Chief Executive added that one of the factors that contributed to the assumption is that the health facilities in the district are not handling complex medical conditions because they are not hospitals.

“The misconception people have is that it is not a health centre but a hospital so when people come with a condition, they should treat it entirely there, but that is not the case because they do not have the mandate to treat an illness that is meant for a district hospital or regional hospital,” he said.