Pharmacists want N'Assembly to probe health insurance scheme

THE Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) has urged members of the National Assembly to promptly investigate the alleged haphazardimplementation of the nation's National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to allow the programme get to its targeted audience.The Kwara State chairman of the PSN Abdulmajeed Oderinde told The Guardian yesterday in Ilorin that the national body of the PSN had compiled a list of its observations over the 'wrong implementation of the programme' and would forward it to the National Assembly in the form of a petition.The NHIS, specifically section 10 (3) of its Bill, is expected to cover the wide subsidy gap in health insurance, especially in the area of community-based social health insurance. 50 per cent of the primary healthcare development fund will be dedicated to 'Primary healthcare facilities' through the NHIS. This fund excludes two per cent from the consolidated fund of the federation's account.But Oderinde said that many private hospitals registered for the NHIS lacked the services of qualified and registered pharmacists, noting that the scheme rather than meeting its needs 'is gradually becoming a counter-productive venture.'To him, the capital invested in the NHIS by all the stakeholders had taken into consideration the fact that all the personnel in the medical field would be involved.He, however, lamented the alleged implementation of the programme exclusivelyby some medical doctors. The local PSB boss noted that the act of dispensing of drugs and supply of useful information about the drugs to the end users could not be implemented 'due to the exclusion of the qualified pharmacists.'He added: 'How can we be paying so much on this laudable programme but yet fail in the area of its full implementation ' We are cheating thepatients and we are not likely to get the needed results.'Due to these developments, all the branches of the PSN in the country had since forwarded our complaints to the national body. As I am talking with you, the PSN at the national level is planning a petition to the National Assembly on the development. In the health sector, we are all important and as such nobody should be made to play a second fiddle.'While canvassing 'prompt and full' implementation of the NHIS across the federation, Oderinde said the relevant authorities should explain to Nigerians the reasons the registered pharmacists were initially involved in the implementation of the scheme before 'being booted out of it.'He added:'We are the secondary provider under the scheme but now sidelined. At present, we do not get prescriptions of the NHIS beneficiaries. Something must be done to correct the anomaly.
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