PRESS RELEASE TO MARK ACPN DAY OF 2024 PSN SCIENTIFIC WEEK
Good moning distinguished ladies and gentlemen of the press. It’s my great pleasure to welcome us to today’s Press Conference focused on the theme of ACPN Day of the PSN Scientific Week commencing today 26th to 31st August 2024- ‘The Imperative of the March towards Universal Health Coverage in Nigeria; The Unique Place of Community Pharmacists’.
First and foremost, we want to appreciate the government for its various programs, projects, laws, policies, guidelines, etc that are put in place to keep moving Nigeria’s healthcare delivery system towards the attainment of Universal Health Coverage, in line with 1948 WHO Constitution that Health is a fundamental human right and which member nations set as target in 2015 among the seventeen sustainable development goals to attain by the year 2030. UHC means that ‘all people and communities in the population have access to the full range of quality health services they need, when and where they need them, without suffering financial hardship’.
However, despite all efforts, Nigeria still ranked 157th among 167 member nations in 2023, an indication that we need to redouble efforts and reappraise our processes if we are to attain the set targets by the year 2030 along the three major lines that Universal Health Coverage addresses – Equity in Access to health services, Optimal quality of the health services and Protection against financial risk.
Countries close to the set targets like Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Sweden, etc have functional health insurance systems, which is the only realistic avenue to attain these deliverables.
Despite signing the Nigeria Health Insurance Act into law in 2022, to create affordable and equitable access to health for all Nigerians, our Health system is still fraught with challenges, which earns us low ratings on health indices and contributes to the persisting medical tourism. Here are some areas the government may need to pay more attention to
Access to the full range of Patient Care – This includes Pharmaceutical Care, which is a professional input into healthcare delivery that goes beyond ‘drug issuance or collection’. All efforts must be made to avoid commoditizing Pharmacy practice and treating medicines like articles of trade in our dear country. The training and practice of Pharmacy in patient care have evolved from the erstwhile sole drug dispensing functions to more patient-centred roles and this must be intentionally incorporated into our healthcare delivery system for consistent best treatment outcomes. Pharmacists, especially the Community Pharmacists operating within the living communities of our citizens for easy access provide counselling to Patients on medication use, they carry out Medication reviews to avert medication errors, support with in-between hospital visits to monitor treatment outcomes, etc.
Payment of fees for professional services rendered under the National Health Insurance is best unbundled from capitation paid for other primary care. For a scheme that is here to stay and move us closer to attaining our SDG goal of UHC, we cannot afford to keep complicating the payment system. Direct payment enshrines a greater level of transparency and accountability that ensures that the scheme attains a greater level of efficiency and sustainability.
Elimination of the ‘my patient syndrome’ – Modern-day healthcare delivery is multidisciplinary and the best quality of care is accessed by the patient for optimal treatment outcomes where all healthcare providers in the value chain make their professional inputs. Inter-Professional Collaboration of all Healthcare Providers is therefore the way to go for turning around our health systems outcomes.
Scaling up management of our health institutions – As is obtainable in other climes, the output of our health facilities will soar when they are managed by seasoned healthcare administrators who don’t necessarily have to be healthcare providers or clinical staff. This is because health facilities management is a different affair from diagnosis and core patient care. Health facility management involves people management, financial management, strategic management, logistics management, engineering, the use of information technology, etc. It is more of a core managerial function than clinical skills. A total deviation from our perennial abysmally low health systems ranking will require a radical shift from our conventional ways because the world is moving at a faster pace.
Human Capital Challenges – Without prejudice to the negative impacts of policies of other countries that lead to migration of our professionals, the turnaround of our health systems will be a mirage if we don’t address manpower shortage issues occasioned by poor funding in the entire value chain of the healthcare delivery system. This cuts across the healthcare providers and the regulatory agencies like the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria (PCN) saddled with the responsibility of upholding ethics and standards of practice and the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) saddled with product regulation.
Improved Drug distribution system – One of our States in the country has taken the lead in instituting a Coordinated Wholesales Centre. Efforts should be made by other States, especially Lagos to team up with the practitioners, investors, regulators, and all other stakeholders to make it work across board. The impact this will have on our healthcare delivery system is better imagined. It will assist in ascertaining that medications in our patient care value chain are standard and wholesome without which intended treatment outcomes that require inputs of drug use will be impossible.
Automation of our Health Records and Processes – Further enshrining Electronic Health Records (EHR) in all our patient interactions and patient care processes in the public and private healthcare systems will improve the efficiency and accuracy of healthcare delivery, eliminate information loss, facilitate timely access to up-to-date and complete records that improve the quality of care, minimize treatment errors, etc. Besides, it will provide us with easy access to more accurate data needed for planning, population analysis, budgeting, process review, implementation review, and evaluation needed for continuous improvement and more accurate policy formulation.
In conclusion, we thank all members of the Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria across the country and Lagos State in particular who work tirelessly day and night to provide quality Pharmaceutical care to our citizens.
We congratulate our parent body; The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria and our Lagos State
dear colleagues in other practice settings like the Research and Academia, Industry, Hospital, Administration, and Regulation on this year’s Pharmacy and Scientific Week celebrations. Our best is yet to come. It will keep getting better.
We congratulate the Executive Governor of Lagos State, Mr Babajide Olusola Sanwoolu, and the entire team for the giant strides through tireless inputs to see how we meet up with our healthcare commitments to Lagosians and Nigerians. Together, we shall actualize our objectives and put our dear country once again on the roadmap of progress and excellence.
Eko o ni baje o, oba je ti
Itesiwaju Eko, Ajumose gbogbo wa ni.
Tolulope Ajayi Chairman, ACPN Lagos 26th August 2024