The general manager of Hiring Public, Carlos Pimentelassured this Monday that the institution is working to improve the mechanisms for the buys of medicines and the construction of more efficient public policies.
Pimentel indicated that there are 5,182 in the country Suppliers of medicineswhich represents 4.31% of the universe of record of Suppliers of the State, as well as 83 public hospitals that make their services transparent shopping through the institution’s portal.
“We have a number of Suppliers who are ready to offer and could do so in a much more efficient and agile manner, guaranteeing better results,” he said.
To ensure the transparency and the controlsthe official understands that “we must require as a first step that all medicines and medical supplies that are acquired in the country have record sanitary. This seems like a simple thing, but it’s not. Our data tells us that, in the past, many medicines and foods without record sanitary“.
Pimentel referred to the bill that will receive a second reading in the Senate of the Republic on Tuesday, which seeks to ensure that the acquisition of medicines keep the quality at the fairest price, with new contracting methods that reduce contracting times and analyse supply lines.
At the beginning of the management in 2020, the director explained that a tender, between the call process and the award, was taken on average 120 daysAs of today, it has been reduced to 68 days, although the international average is 55 days.
Transactions are growing
Pimentel also acknowledged that the volumes of buys they have increased over the years, primarily due to more hospitals reporting their shopping in the portal and the increase in the transactions by medicines of high cost.
“In 2020, the amount traded on the portal was 2,317 million, but in 2023 it was 5,963 million. In the Dominican Republic, before 2020 we did not know how hospitals made purchases, so we found a debt of more than 3,000 million pesos,” he said.
The entities with higher level of contracts are: the Program of Medicines Essentials and Logistics Support Center (Promese/CAL); the National Health Service (SNS) for the equipment of hospitals, the Ministry of Public Health (with a volume reduced), the Incart and the Reynaldo Almánzar, Ney Arias, Marcelino Vélez, Cecanot, Ramón de Lara and Hugo Mendoza hospitals.
“We have to look into the possibility of a special regulation for the purchase of medicines because they are totally different and distinct characteristics”Director General of Public Procurement
Over the medicines of high costcommented that “with the shopping from the program of high cost There is no difficulty at this time, Promese is supplied and the bidding process is ongoing and open, so there is no situation.”
This July 23 and 24, Pimentel will be present at the II Congress International organized by the Ibero-American Public Procurement Network (Redicop) where these issues will be discussed in depth.
