The Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Tunji Alausa, has attributed Nigeria’s drug price increase to the prolonged presence of multinational pharmaceutical companies in the country.
Alausa stated this during the inauguration of the Federal Medical Centre Clinical Complex in the Ebute-Metta area of Lagos State on Thursday.
The minister noted that the problem of foreign pharmaceutical companies being in the country for longer than five years will be remedied, and the regular procedure will be resumed.
He stated, “Concerning the issue of drug prices in the country, we have been having sleepless nights and we are here to solve it.
“One major issue we have in the county is that we allow multinational pharmaceutical companies to stay in the country for too long.
“The normal duration for pharmaceutical companies to stay in the country is five years but we have allowed these companies to stay here for over twenty years and more and we need to change that. They have not contributed to the development of the country.”
Alausa further said that four pillars would be put into place to promote the country’s progress and the expansion of health care.
He said, “We have come up with four pillars that will foster the growth of the health care in the country, and they include: holding ourselves as healthcare providers in the country accountable, unlocking the value chain where the health care in the country will improve the Gross Domestic Product of the country, and providing more job opportunities for students in the country.”
He added that the nation will produce over 120,000 nurses by the end of the year, in contrast to the previous number in the country.
“When we came in as a government, we were enrolling 28,000 nurses in a year. After this President took over, we are enrolling about 66,000 nurses into medicine school but before the end of the year, we will produce over 120,000 nurses in the country.
“Also, the Lagos State University of Health Sciences will produce 2,500 medical students in a year,” he said.
He added that the resources available will be fully optimised to improve health care in the country.
“I know all our Chief Medical Directors are doing okay with all the resources available to them. We will keep providing more resources and competent health care to help the citizens and the federal health tertiary health care,” Alausa said.
In his remarks, the Chief Medical Director, Federal Medical Centre, Adedamola Dada, stated that the hospital will always prepare for the nation’s current medical brain drain situation, adding that it will not affect its operations.
Dada said, “The centre will help to provide more accessibility to patients and also improve the quality of health care in the country. We as an organisation will not allow the ‘Japa’ syndrome to affect us because we will always plan.”
Earlier in December, The PUNCH had reported that the exit of GSK and other multinational pharmaceutical giants has forced the prices of drugs and other pharmaceutical products to rise astronomically by 900 per cent.
PUNCH Healthwise keenly observed that since the exit of these pharmaceutical giants, there has been serious scarcity and hoarding of essential drugs occasioned by the near absence of local production, which has been blamed on the high cost of raw materials, exchange rates, inflation, and the naira.
The situation is worsened by the hoarding of certain essential drugs to create artificial scarcity to make more profit and the official devaluation of the naira.
