By Mutalib Jibril
Nigerians with health challenges are in grave danger as the prices of medicines are now beyond the reach of most people.
The situation is becoming worse by the day as major pharmaceutical companies are folding up their operations in Nigeria because the environment is gradually becoming difficult.
The mass exodus of Medical doctors, pharmacists, nurses, and other healthcare personnel to the USA, Europe, Saudi Arabia, and other countries abroad for greener pastures is also contributing to the menace.
This is a trying period in Nigeria with the prices of foodstuffs and other basic amenities almost beyond the reach of the common masses.
This is the time when everyone prays not to fall sick.
The prices of medicines have increased sporadically. Also, the prices of most of the routine medications patients need to manage their health have increased by 300 percent.
While the prices of GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Nigeria Plc(GSK) products have skyrocketed by 800 percent to 1000 percent.
Most pharmaceutical products in Nigeria are imported from China, India, or Europe.
The drug supply is likely to worsen with GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) exit from Nigeria in October after 51 years. The British company intends to switch to a product distribution model in the Nigerian market.
However, we seriously doubt the feasibility of this approach, given that repatriating income from sales in foreign exchange to multinational home countries is currently impractical due to Nigeria’s fiscal difficulties.
According to Reuters, the economy is facing significant challenges with approximately $7 billion in matured forex forwards, which is a major concern for investors as foreign currency shortages continue to devalue the naira.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) claims to have cleared a backlog of about $2 billion of these forwards across the aviation, oil, and manufacturing sectors. Foreign airlines are owed $792 million, of which $65 million has been paid.Consequently, some airlines have abruptly ceased their operations in Nigeria.
70% of drugs used in Nigeria are imported. In addressing the issue of the drug crisis, the local pharmaceutical companies should be manufacturing most of the drugs to be used in Nigeria instead of marketing and distributing products manufactured abroad.
This will further go a long way in minimizing the high rate of fake drugs in the country.
Data from the International Trade Centre put Nigeria’s drug import in 2020 at $2.4 billion, which has been declining since then due to forex pressures. In 2021, it was $1.37 billion, and $1.05 billion in 2022. The downward trend continues as forex scarcity intensifies.
Citizens struggling to eat daily, with food inflation at 33.93 percent as of December 2023, cannot defray healthcare costs, so they avoid treatment with quality drugs. This is highly pathetic.
Though it has dawned on the government that major drugs are no longer affordable to most Nigerians, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Ali Pate, has said an Executive Order from the President is in the offing to improve the situation. The federal government has reportedly sealed packages that will make drug manufacturing thrive, regulate the prices of drugs, release funds to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), and cancel waivers in the recruitment of health workers.
When the cost of healthcare is out of the reach of the poor, they avoid going to the hospital for a doctor’s attention and resort to self-help through self-medication, patronage of quacks, and indulgence in the use of herbs and other local concoctions without proven scientific bases, all of which could kill, or cause life-threatening damages to organs of the body. Others rely on prayers and spiritual interventions only.
For the sick to breathe and dream of survival, the more than $100 billion value of stolen crude by some oil majors, identified by the immediate past government, NIETI, and indicated in the JVC profit-sharing revenue, and which the Supreme Court judgment said should be recovered, must be. Otherwise, the hit that the naira gets against the dollar, and the operations of economic rogues, which carrying was loaded, will continue to ruin the economy, and i
imperil the lives of Nigerians.