84,000 sign up for medicine deliveries during lockdown in Western Cape

A Western Cape drug delivery operation is gearing up for massive expansion after signing 84,000 customers during lockdown.

A second dispensing line is being added at the provincial health department's chronic dispensary in Parow, where 3.8 million parcels of medication were packed between January 1 and September 30.

The dispensary has almost doubled throughput to 32,000 parcels a day during lockdown. They are either delivered to patients' homes or to collection points at healthcare facilities.

“These medicine parcels are a vital tool in the provision of community-based primary care,” said Noel Guliwe, CEO of Medipost Holdings, which operates the dispensary for the health department.

“Planning is at an advanced stage for a second dispensing line to be introduced by the end of the year, growing capacity for an additional 20,000 patient scripts to be processed per day.”

Health MEC Nomafrench Mbombo said medicine parcels for stable chronic patients had been delivered to clinics for 15 years to reduce queues.

Kim Lowenherz, director of pharmacy services at the provincial health department, said home delivery was introduced after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The medicine parcels are disseminated through partner non-profit organisations to community health workers, who then deliver the parcels to patients,” she said.

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