The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Monday approved a major intervention that would help bring down the cost of medical care, across the board, working through Medipool
Ali Pate, Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, disclosed this while briefing State House Journalists after the Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, Abuja
Pate stated that the Council approved Medipool, a group of purchasing organisations for competitive pricing, to be the supplier of essential medicines and healthcare products across Nigeria, through the Federal Government’s intervention.
“The policy will enhance the supply of basic health care, provision of funds, but also eventually outside that, through federal tertiary hospitals, so that as a buyer, we can negotiate lower prices.
“The policy is part of the federal government’s efforts to make healthcare cheaper, by reshaping the domestic market, providing easier access to quality drugs and stimulating local manufacturing of drugs”, he said.
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Pate, who noted that Nigerians had recently faced hardships in accessing quality drugs, said the policy was shaped in such a way that the demand for quality pharmaceuticals could be accessed at a lower cost and also improve quality and stimulate local manufacturing that is medical.
According to him, “the direction of the President for Nigerians is to have lower cost of drugs and wider access to essential medicines, quality, and access.
“This has been the work that we have been undertaking for many months. In fact, for almost a year and a half, the government has been trying different ways to reduce the cost, because we know that Nigerians were hurting because of the rising cost of pharmaceuticals.”
Referencing countries like the United States, Pate acknowledged some efforts aimed at reducing costs, including Executive Orders to reduce the cost of pharmaceuticals.
“In line with the Presidential initiative to unlock the healthcare value chain, and the Executive Order, which the President signed in June 2024, that Executive Order provided incentives for local manufacturing by taking away tax tariffs for for import of raw materials, so that we can encourage our local manufacturers.
“There’s an element of that Executive Order which is to allow us to shape the market by aggregating the demand in the Nigerian health space, and challenges that demand to encourage our local suppliers.
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“So it’s using monopsony power of government as a large buyer of those commodities, negotiate lower prices and then channel those commodities”, he noted.
According to the Minister, the “scope includes, but not limited to procurement planning, distribution monitoring, supply chain, logistics management, quality assurance, regulatory compliance, as well as ensuring that local manufacturers are supported.”
It also includes import substitution and the financial management and payment systems, as well as capacity building and training and contingency planning to ensure steady availability of essential drugs that are the quality that Nigerians can benefit and at a lower cost through, a public private partnership.
Pate said the vehicle, Medipool, had been vetted through the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission and had been benchmarked with other global group purchasing organizations, including Kenya, South Africa, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and many other countries.
Pate also disclosed that FEC also approved the award of contract for the procurement and installation of cardiac categorisation machine by the Usman Dan Fodio University Teaching Hospital in Sokoto, costing N2.3 billion.
“Essentially, it is to help the University of Sokoto Teaching Hospital provide diagnosis and treatment services for heart and blood vessel problems, including heart attacks and irregular heart rates.
“Those are very complicated, very serious medical issues. The University Hospital in Sokoto will now have this capability, which will serve the population in Sokoto state, the North West geopolitical zone of our country, and indeed the country, it will save lives, but also contribute towards reversing outbound medical tourism, because Nigerians can be able to access services which either or they were not able to.
“That is an important step, one more among several other interventions that further mile was supporting to strengthen the federal teaching hospitals to train and to provide quality service as part of the transformation of our health sector under the leadership of the President”, he concluded.
