ACPN urges FG, consumers to ensure achievement of universal healthcare coverage
As sociat ion of C ommu n i t y Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN) has called on the Federal Government, stakeholders and consumers of health to ensure achievement of the Universal Health Coverage in the country.
The National chairman of ACPN, Samuel Adekola, who made the call during the opening ceremony of the association’s annual national conference in Abuja recently, said that the Universal Health Coverage can only be achieved through appropriate assessment and full utilisation of every strata of health care delivery system in Nigeria.
Adekola observed that Nigerian Community Pharmacist practices in an environment that is one of the most hostile in the world, adding, “He is faced with the same challenges that bedevil all other businesses like lack of basic infrastructure to unfriendly government regulatory policies like multiple taxation.
“During the heat of the Covid-19 pandemic for instance, Community Pharmacists who are the first port of call for health interventions of varying depths were not covered by any form of insurance and benefit package in Nigeria, but these same cadre of personnel were singled out for praise by UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson for sustaining services when Doctors’ Clinics (surgeries) in the private sector
were closed in the throes of the plague of Covid-19.
“In the USA, Community Pharmacies which already take care of 80 percent of immunisation activities were officially empowered to carry out Covid-19 testing in their facilities,” he said.
He however, called for the development of appropriate legal and regulatory framework for community pharmacies in Nigeria as being promoted by the WHO.
On the conference, he said it aimed at bringing to the fore the slide of value and benefits community pharmacists are capable of adding to primary health care delivery in the country.
Quoting the WHO European Region, he said: “Community pharmacists are the health professionals most accessible to the public and are a cornerstone of primary health care.