Until 2010, estimates and programming for the purchase of medicines and supplies in the Dominican Republic’s public health sector were carried out by each individual health facility without the benefit of a standardized methodology. In 2011, the Ministry of Public health, with the support of SIAPS, conducted a series of national procurement programming exercises using a standard methodology. These programming exercises are making it possible to ascertain for the first time that the resources allocated by the Ministry of Finance were insufficient to finance the needs for medicines and supplies as estimated in the programming exercises.
