Kwara govt moves to secure cheaper, steady medicine supply in state hospitals
The Kwara State Government has engaged pharmaceutical companies to sustain the availability of essential medicines in state-owned hospitals and make drugs more affordable for patients.
The engagement, which brought together major pharmaceutical drug vendors, was aimed at strengthening the supply chain and ensuring uninterrupted access to essential medicines and consumables across government hospitals.
The Executive Secretary of the Kwara State Hospitals Management Board (KW-HMB), Dr Abdulraheem Malik, disclosed this during a strategic meeting with pharmaceutical companies at the Ministry of Health Conference Room in Ilorin.
Malik said the state government had taken deliberate steps to strengthen the financial independence and operational efficiency of the Essential Drugs Programme (EDP), enabling it to make regular payments for medicines and consumables supplied by vendors.
He disclosed that Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq had approved expedited payments to drug vendors to enable the EDP to meet its financial obligations to suppliers more promptly.
“Whatever product you supply to the Essential Drug Programme, we will ensure that it is paid for. We want to build a system where suppliers can have confidence in doing business with us,” he said.
The KW-HMB boss, however, appealed to pharmaceutical vendors to offer competitive prices and concessions to the EDP to enable government hospitals to sell medicines at affordable rates.
“If the price of drugs in our hospitals is higher than what patients can get from pharmacies outside, they will naturally prefer to buy outside. We therefore appeal to our suppliers to give EDP competitive prices so that the medicines can remain affordable to our patients,” he said.
Malik stressed that a reliable drug supply chain was critical to effective healthcare delivery and ensuring that state hospitals could consistently meet patients’ needs.
Earlier, the Project Manager of the EDP, Pharm. Lovette Oladele, said the meeting was convened to strengthen the relationship between the programme and pharmaceutical suppliers, address existing challenges and develop a more efficient and sustainable system for procuring and distributing essential medicines.
Representatives of Sam Pharmaceutical Company, May & Baker PLC and Fidson Healthcare commended the KW-HMB and EDP for improvements in their operations and engagement with suppliers.
They expressed optimism that continued collaboration, particularly around timely payments and addressing suppliers’ concerns, would further improve medicine availability across state hospitals.
The meeting ended with a renewed commitment by the KW-HMB, EDP and pharmaceutical suppliers to strengthen the state’s medicine supply chain and ensure sustained access to quality and affordable essential medicines.
