The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) Lagos branch has advised the state government to expedite action on lingering agreements and other fresh ones to avoid labour unrest in the health sector.
Chairman of PSN, Lagos chapter, Babayemi Oyekunle who made the call during the society’s 2024 scientific week held in Lagos regretted that the demands by JOHESU/AHPA from the state government since May 2023 are still lingering.
Enumerating some of the demands, Oyekunle said they include; domestication of the consultant cadre in pharmacy resolution; upward review of enhanced call/shift/non-clinical duty allowance resolution; circular on the headship of the directorate of medical laboratory science resolution; implementation of call duty allowance to dental technologist therapists resolution, among others.
In his words: “Despite all entreaties, 15 months after the agreement with the Lagos State government, the under-listed in the terms of agreement are still outstanding.”
To him, the Consultant Pharmacist cadre has become fully operational now at Federal level with the creation of the necessary elements on the IPPIS payment platform for Consultant Pharmacists.
With this development, he said that over 250 Consultant Pharmacists have been appointed in the last few weeks in the Federal Health Institutions with University College hospital, Ibadan leading the way with the appointment of over 30 consultant pharmacists.
‘It is also noteworthy that all other six southwest states have finalised the implementation of the Consultant Pharmacists Cadre with Lagos state embarrassingly as the only state where prevarications still prevail,” he added.
On the other hand, he revealed PSN decision to seek legal intervention on what he described as many anomalies of the implementation of Health Insurance in Nigeria.
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Explaining further, Babayemi said: “I therefore, confirm to you that our Attorneys will join other stakeholders in the process of instituting a legal process against the NHIA and other related government apparatus to compel a redress in the unwholesome mess that continues to epitomise managed care and Social Health Insurance programmes in Nigeria at the Federal High Court, Abuja.
“This becomes germane because the state governments and private insurance schemes continue to leverage on the obnoxious model of the NHIA, an agendum we must nip in the bud now for the sake of posterity as we seek the norm in international best practice prevails in Nigeria.
“From inception in 2006, the then National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) secretariat in active collaboration with the HMOs violated the NHIS Act by adopting an unlawful concept dubbed Global Capitation which in real terms implied that the HMOs were allowed to disburse funds meant for fee for service for Pharmacists who dispensed drugs or laboratory services in the area of diagnosis by Laboratory Scientists in addition to the capitation fees of primary providers to same physicians. This obnoxious and oppressive act was protested and is still being protested.”
In addition, he said: “From 2006 to 2024, there have been over 15 dialogue sessions by the leadership of the PSN and ACPN with successive management teams of the NHIS/NHIA, but after rigmaroles as well as manipulations, the ugly status quo was not just retained but actually perfected.
“When the current management team of the NHIA came on board, fresh consultations were initiated and the only rhetoric that emerged was that NHIA will not embrace global capitation because it is not provided for in the NHIA Act.
“From an operational point of view, this has proven to be just semantics as the NHIA continues to merge funds meant for fees for services for our members with capitation payments for Physicians all around the country.
“The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) Lagos State in conjunction with stakeholders and the ACPN has continued to review particularly these developments with its legal team particularly by appraising the far reaching implications of Sections 22(1), 27, 29, 31, 32 and 33 of the PCN Act 2022 which combine to make it very unambiguous that dispensing of drugs cannot be lawfully handled in any facility that is not registered by the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria (PCN).”
