The Health Ministry is piloting a project with Island Pharmacy that will allow retail pharmacies to dispense their own stock of price control medicines that are part of the Free Medicine Program list.
Health Minister Doctor Ifereimi Waqainabete has also told parliament that this will be the generic stock.
He says the Free Medicine Program complements the pharmaceutical services currently delivered from government health facilities.
Doctor Waqainabete says the current framework underlines that the Fiji Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Services are to procure and deliver the approved medications to retail pharmacies.
He says once received, pharmacies are to dispense those medicines to eligible patients and keep manual records of these released goods.
Doctor Waqainabete says at the beginning of this year, they have reviewed that because it is now going on to 5 five years.
He says it was reviewed to look to suit the current situation from the impact of COVID-19 through the global supply chain of pharmaceutical services.
