Medicines will soon be obtainable from ATM-like dispensing machines. Right to Care, a non-profit organisation that supports the national public health infrastructure, plans to install pharmacy machines across Johannesburg.In a month's time the first machine will be piloted at Themba Lethu Clinic, at the Helen Joseph Hospital, Right to Care's flagship site for its HIV management programme.Patients will be able to collect their medicines from the machine outside the clinic at any time.The machines are intended for patients on chronic medication – not those on acute or varying treatments.A 2010 study by Boston University professor Sydney Rosen on the costs of HIV/Aids treatment in South Africa found that 91% of patients spent between R18 and R75 on transport.Kurt Firnhaber, CEO of Right to Care, said patients with chronic illnesses have to spend several hours in queues to get medication.According to Right To Care, the average patient will take 3.5 minutes to use a pharmacy dispensing unit, from start to finish.Sasha Stevenson, a lawyer for human rights advocacy group Section 27, said the introduction of the machines was part of a move to decentralise the distribution of medicines and would take some of the pressure off the healthcare system.Four units will be set up in shopping centres in Soweto later this year. Firnharber predicts they will be used by 80,000 patients on a monthly basis.Patients will need their identity book and a secret PIN number to use the dispensing machines. If they lose their documents they will have to get a bar-code from the pharmacy at which they would otherwise collect their medication.The machine keeps track of all prescriptions filled to prevent the possibility of overdosing.Mokobori and Firnharber said challenges include stocking the machine and dealing with technical glitches.“A lot of times we see when you introduce new technology into the department of health it succeeds or fails based on people, not technology,” Firnhaber says.The clinic has had a similar machine for the last three years, which was a form of in-pharmacy automation, that helped cut average waiting times at the clinic from four hours to under 45 minutes. It also reduced errors that resulted in receiving incorrect medicines because of similar packaging. But the machine couldn't be stocked with medicines packaged with irregular dimensions, like South Africa's typical plastic packs.The initial pilot at Themba Lethu Clinic will consist of an in-house pharmacy dispensing unit but Right To Care is determined to scale up.The new machine is an out-of-pharmacy-automation, which means patients will soon be able to collect their medicines outside the clinic regardless of working hours. It can be stocked with South African medicine. ..