Olumide Akintayo , the immediate past President of
the Pharmaceutical Society (PSN) who is
also a Fellow of PSN was the
Chairman, Association of Hospital
and Administrative Pharmacists of Nigeria (AHAPN) at a recent roundtable in Lagos to
commemorate this year’s World
Malaria Day spoke to CHIOMA UMEHA on the event and other sundry issues.
Excerpts:
The World Health Organisation recently
marked the World Malaria Day with the theme, “Zero Malaria Starts With Me.”
What role could public health pharmacists play in this fight against malaria
scourge?
Malaria is a potentially fatal disease state if
not well managed. As frontline healthcare providers, we should naturally be
interested in the malaria war because we belong to a health system where an
estimated 65 per cent of clinical visitations are still directly traceable to
malaria cases. This is most unfortunate and the situation is apparently not changing.
In the light of the advances in professional orientation, especially as
professionals who have an obvious edge in the knowledge of the synthesis of
chemicals and drugs, we should be championing an agenda to do a few things
differently.
Could you expatiate on the type of agenda
you mean?
Our Public Health Pharmacists in particular need
to champion an agenda of preventive care as the ultimate panacea to the vicious
cycle of the dreaded malaria disease endemic in the tropical regions. Can we,
as experimental scientists, guide this nation in the use of safe chemicals
which can be used to treat the environment in our quest to win the malaria war?
A nation of about 180 million people which continues to allow 65 per cent of
its population, which amounts to almost 120 million people, expend about N120
million daily on the average to treat malaria needs to curb such waste which
transcends to a whooping N43.8 billion expenditure on only core anti-malarial,
a figure which might easily hit the N100 billion mark if other additives
including cost of analgesics, multivitamins and others are factored.
In other words, what is trending suggests that the
treatment cost in terms of medication needs alone reveals that almost 20 per
cent of the entire value chain that symbolises our pharmaceutical market is
dedicated to drug treatment with anti-malarials if the total value of the
Pharmaceutical Sector is put at a realistic $2 billion. Hospital Pharmacists
must therefore align with other stakeholders to re-engineer the approach to
malaria treatment in our polity.
What informed your choice to lead public
health pharmacists at this point in time?
One of the reasons that informed my choice as
Chairman is that Hospital Pharmacists want an update from me on my direct
involvement in agitations to improve the welfare conditions of colleagues in
their sector. This is a self-inflicted challenge I have taken up since 2012
when I emerged as President of PSN. Fifteen areas in the seventeen term of
settlement agreed with the FG on September 30, 2017 have today been entered as
consent judgment by the NICN after six months. This followed the 2018 strike
which lasted from April 17 to May 31, JOHESU/AHPA was referred to the
Alternative Dispute Resolution Centre (ADR) of the National Industrial Court of
Nigeria (NICN).
In specific terms what are the achievements
of the sustained Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) and Assembly of Healthcare
Professional Association, (AHPA) struggle?
The specific benefit package courtesy of an
unrelenting JOHESU/AHPA leadership as reflected in the Certified True Copy
(CTC) of the NICN judgment include, the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
reached between JOHESU and the Federal Government of Nigeria.
First, parties agreed to immediate implementation
of central internship placement in FHIs through a Central Placement Committee
of the Federal Ministry of Health(FMOH) to ensure continuous training for
members of JOHESU within four weeks from execution of terms of ADR. Second
parties shall adopt position on skipping as decided by court. In the interim
the status quo be maintained.
The parties also agreed that various arrears shall
be rectified where identified. The FMOH will liaise with College Medical Directors (CMDs) and CEOs, Presidential Initiative on
continuous Audit(PICA ) and Integrated payroll and personal information systems
(IPPIS) to effect necessary payment of
arrears. They also agreed to tackle
employment of JOHESU members by undertaking a staff audit to ascertain the
veracity of JOHESU’s claim of understaffing and irregular employment.
Towards this end the FMOH will set up Staff Audit
teams in all Federal Health Institutions (FHIs) including representatives of
JOHESU. The committee is expected to complete the exercise within two to four
weeks from the date of execution of this term.
Parties also consented to enhanced entry point for
radiographers and medical laboratory scientists by ensuring full compliance
with their circular.
Parties further resolved to ensure due compliance
with the extant provision of the law in the appointment of CMDs/MDs. Parties in
addition adopted the report of the five-man Committee on the payment of
specialist allowance which is to be implemented by the Heath Minister. In this
regard the approval of the Minister is to be implemented and sustained.
Other areas of agreements are: Parties accepted
that the composition of Boards of appointment shall be in line with the
enabling statutes; the unions shall be consulted in the appointment of their
representatives to the board.
Similarly, parties resolved that Federal
Government should administratively redress complaints of PSN, NASU and other
bodies that were not reckoned with in earlier board appointments through
filling vacant board membership slots at the National Eye and National Ear
Centre.
Parties were also unanimous in tackling systemic
stagnation through the proposed staff audit exercise; Parties decided to handle
Retirement Age review administratively through FMOH which was mandated to
present a fresh memo to the National Council on Establishment (NCE). JOHESU,
FMOH and other stakeholders agreed to embark on advocacy in this regards.
The rest are; parties agreed to subject additional
demands bordering on welfare of JOHESU members to the sub-committee on JOHESU
on Critical Labour Matters. All other issues will go to the Central Standing
Committee and parties agreed that the implementation of court judgments is not
to parties’ discretion.
What are the areas you could not agree with
the FG?
We could not agree with the FG at the ADR
especially with regards to adjustment of CONHESS Scale, withheld salaries of
April and May, 2018 and the Consultancy Cadre. These matters are being handled
at unusual modes and by the Grace of God, justice will be dispensed sooner than
you will ever imagine.
I therefore call on all Hospital Pharmacists to
espouse the Medieval Latin phrase “mutatis mutandis” which literally means
“once the necessary changes have been made.”
I continue to evaluate the duplicitous politics of
expediency we play in organised Pharmacy with particular reference to the
battle to emancipate Health workers from the depth of injustice they contend
with in this clime. It is painful that even leaders in AHAPN do not understand
the power-play in the dynamics of health-provisioning in our country.
I watched and evaluated in unusual physiological
candour when AHAPN was mobilised by new forces of time and space to appraise
the desirability to remain or pull-out of JOHESU sometimes last year. While the
mutinous planning was being hatched, I was worried over the psychological
trauma it would have imposed on generations of innocent pharmacists who would
have been at a receiving end. It is important to firmly assert that it was
JOHESU that won the battle to self-actualise the professional careers of many
of those gathered here today who are now Directors of Pharmacy.
As at 2012 when I became President, I knew of only
one Director of Pharmacy, FMC, Umuahia out of all 55 FHIs. The last time I
checked, there were at least 25 Directors of Pharmacy in FHIs. JOHESU was the
one that won the battle to jump-start careers of pharmacists through skipping
of CONHESS 10 won at the NICN.
Today, while some leaders in organised Pharmacy
romance with their persecutors who have the effrontery to go to
court to demand scrapping of our Pharm D programme, it is only JOHESU that has
confronted these antagonists in court to
demand that they must approve programmes and benefits for Pharmacists and other
cadres in health care. No arm or organ in organised Pharmacy has dared to
challenge it.
What is your take on this year’s World
Malaria Day?
Yes, I was invited as Chairman of the World
Malaria Day seminar; it is appropriate I return to that important subject
matter. I did recommend earlier on the need to exploit environmental treatment
through safe chemicals to wipe out the vectors of malaria. This will be in
alignment with theme of the day which compels us to “End Malaria for Good.”
Can we begin to set a realistic target of reducing
malaria-based clinical visitations to under 50 per cent in the next two years?
By 2020 when we gather, we should be able to showcase this as a profession that
seeks to be the benchmark and cynosure of eyes in the health sector.
