The Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN), Lagos State branch, has reaffirmed its commitment to providing quality healthcare services to Nigerians, aligning with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, which aims to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all by 2030.
Addressing newsmen on the association’s one week programme to provide free health services to Lagosians, on Monday, the Chairman of ACPN, Lagos State branch, Tolulope Ajayi emphasized the association’s role in encouraging members to prioritize patients’ health and collaborate with the government to improve healthcare delivery.
He said members of ACPN would visit different areas in Lagos to offer free health services to Lagosians.
Regarding the issue of quackery in the profession, the chairman stressed that it is a collective responsibility to report unqualified practitioners to regulatory authorities.
Ajayi informed that ACPN encourages citizens to speak out and provide information to aid focused regulation and eliminate quackery from communities.
With less than 2,000 members serving over 20 million Lagosians, he said, “ACPN acknowledges the need for more qualified pharmacists to meet the growing demand.”
The association also appealed to the government to improve the economy, enabling new graduates to establish businesses and contribute to the community pharmacy space.
While appreciating efforts of the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwolu for his unwavering supports toward health care services in the state, Ajayi stated that, “Like we currently do in Lagos State, which we so much appreciate our governor for, services rendered by community pharmacists are paid directly because they can be tracked, they can be traced, and they are very visible. And as we do this, as we unbundle, it will engender more trust. It will engender transparency, it will engender accountability, and then ensure that this process is not only more efficient, but that we also make it sustainable”.
He said further that the association had onboarded 322 pharmacists to the Lagos State Health Insurance Scheme, recognizing the importance of health insurance in accessing quality healthcare.
“ACPN also empowers its members through training, capacity building, and access to funds, enabling them to provide sustainable and qualitative services”, Ajayi hinted.
In some of the centres visited by news men, Lagosians came out to access the free health care provided by the ACPN. In Iyana Ipaja, Mr. Muyiwa Oyatokun expressed satisfaction towards the free health services.
He said: “this is a good development in Lagos state. I’m one of many Lagosians who have been tested for series of health challenges and given free medicines that I needed for a certain period of time.”
At Makoko, Epe, Badagry and Alimosho, members of ACPN are also expected to attend to Lagosians for the rest of the one week long programme.
Tolulope however expressed his dismay at the Nigeria low rating along health indices. He said Nigeria still ranked 157 among 167 member nations in the year 2023.
“Despite signing the Nigeria Health Insurance Act into law in the year 2022 by former president, Muhammadu Buhari, which is targeted at creating affordable and equitable access to health for all Nigerians, our health system is still fraught with a lot of challenges, which answers the low rating along the health indices and contributes to the persisting medical authorities, he said.
Nevertheless, he proffered that the government will need to intensify efforts at attaining the desired goals. In his words, “Nigeria needs to redouble efforts and reappraise processes if we are to attain these set targets by the year 2030.
Ajayi then proffered that there are some major areas the country needs to focus on if these feat are to be achieved.
According to him, “the first one is equity in access to health care services- meaning we want to break the gap between the rich and the poor. Health is a fundamental human right of our citizens, and we can’t subject our people to economic hardship as they aspire to maintain their health. The second factor is to ensure that the health that our citizens have access to is optimal, that people don’t have to mandate, people don’t have to patch things up, but they are able to access health facilities”.
He advised that, “it’s important, as a country, we pay attention to our drug distribution system. “What this will do for us is that every drug that enters into our system will be traceable, from the manufacturer or from the importer, to the distributors, to the wholesalers, and then to the community pharmacists or the hospital pharmacists that give out these drugs to our dear patients.
“And only then we can be sure that the intended treatment outcome is what we are going to have at the end of the day, when the right medication is given to our patients”, he added.
