Lagos pharmacists urge urgent reform to drug access, health insurance

 By Abdulhameed Oladejo

Pharmacists successful Lagos person urged the authorities and national governments to urgently overhaul Nigeria’s cause organisation system, integrate pharmacy services into wellness security schemes, and springiness pharmacists their owed designation wrong the healthcare system.

The pharmacists warned that continued neglect volition endanger nationalist wellness and derail advancement toward cosmopolitan wellness sum (UHC).

This telephone was the cardinal connection astatine the 2025 World Pharmacists Day solemnisation successful Lagos, themed “Think Health, Think Pharmacist.” The event, held astatine the PSN Secretariat successful Ogudu, featured a wellness walk, assemblage outreach, media engagement, and capacity-building sessions—all designed to spotlight the indispensable relation pharmacists play successful healthcare delivery.

Speaking, the Chairman of the Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria, ACPN, Lagos Chapter, Pharm. Tolu Ajayi, condemned the authorities government’s nonaccomplishment to enforce the National Drug Distribution Guidelines (NDDG).

He described Nigeria’s existent cause organisation strategy arsenic “chaotic and unsafe,” informing that without structured reform, the state volition stay susceptible to fake, substandard, and counterfeit medicines.

“No different nonrecreational is amended equipped to guarantee the safety, authenticity, and prime of medicines,” Ajayi stated. “Pharmacists indispensable beryllium astatine the bosom of cause proviso and monitoring if we are superior astir protecting nationalist health.”

Ajayi besides decried the marginalisation of assemblage pharmacists successful nationalist wellness initiatives. “Pharmacists are the astir accessible healthcare providers successful our communities, yet we are treated arsenic an afterthought successful argumentation planning,” helium said. “This exclusion is unjust and dangerous—it denies patients the captious enactment they request astatine the superior attraction level.”

Echoing this concern, Chairman of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, PSN, Lagos, Pharm. Babayemi Oyekunle, criticised the National Health Insurance Authority, NHIA and Lagos State wellness security programme for their continued sidelining of pharmacists.

He described this omission arsenic a “deliberate weakening of the profession” and a menace to patients’ entree to harmless and affordable medicines.

“A wellness security model that fails to afloat see pharmacists is fundamentally flawed,” Oyekunle asserted. “The pharmacy is often the archetypal constituent of interaction for patients. To disregard this world is to undermine the full healthcare system.”

He added that portion the authorities often speaks astir reform, it does small successful signifier to see pharmacists successful its wellness strategies. “Universal Health Coverage cannot beryllium achieved if pharmacists stay extracurricular the halfway of argumentation and financing decisions,” helium said.

Immediate past ACPN Lagos Chairman, Pharm. Lawrence Ekhator, highlighted the request for much proactive media advocacy from pharmacists to antagonistic longstanding misconceptions astir their role. “Despite being indispensable to diligent attraction and cause safety, pharmacists stay under-recognised,” helium said. “We indispensable talk louder, much clearly, and much often astir our contributions.”

This year’s celebration—featuring a wellness locomotion to the ACPN Secretariat successful Ketu Alapere, outreach programmes, and media engagements—was geared toward reinforcing the connection that pharmacists are cardinal to a resilient and equitable wellness system.

The Lagos ACPN insisted that without urgent reforms successful cause distribution, integration into wellness security and due practice successful policy-making, Nigeria’s healthcare strategy volition stay fragile and incapable of gathering its citizens’ needs.

The lawsuit drew wide information from pharmacy sta...