Only Govt Policies Can Improve Access To Quality Medicines — Peter Obi
The former Governor of Anambra State and Presidential candidate of Labour Party in the 2023 General election Mr Peter Obi, has said that the public can only have access to quality medicine when the government enacts policies that enhance the production of drugs.
Delivering the 6th public lecture of Board of Fellows of Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria titled: ‘Access to Quality Medicines in an Unsustainable Environment’
held in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, on Wednesday, Obi lamented that government neglect and obnoxious policies made it impossible for companies to build drug manufacturing companies that will make it possible for the cost of drugs to be reduced,
Development Index (HDI) is the most critical development in any society.
Obi lamented that the Federal Government built a vaccine laboratory as far back as 1948 but allowed it to decay to the extent that government now depends on foreign countries for vaccines supplies.
He said that the current cholera disease ravaging the country could not have been a worry if government had paid attention to the Health sector.
According to him, Nigeria ranks 157 of 190 countries measured HDI and this shows that the country is low in Health development when SDG has made good health a fundamental human right.
On Cholera outbreak, Obi said: “we are not supposed to be talking about emergency if we had developed the health sector because we have not invested in health and we are not supposed to be talking about outbreak if we had vaccine facility built in 1948 because of bad leadership”.
He called for recruitment of right leadership by dismantling the system through people approaching it with truth.
According to him, access to quality medicine can only be achieved with overall vision of government which must invest in it.
To make the matter worse, only 20 percent of the nation’s primary health care is functional.
He added: “Our economy is weak because of the socio-economic environment. If you want to establish an industry, your regulator will be your revenue agent. Policies of government cripple the system”.
Earlier while introducing Obi, the chairman of the board of Fellows, Dr. Chief Joel E. Adagadzu described him as a noble personality given his pedigree and the precedent he has set, while the chairman of the occasion and Obi of Onitsha described him as the leader of men, ” the biggest of all masquerades”.
The Acting Vice Chancellor of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Professor Joseph Ikechebelu in his address said the topic of the lecture is very germain to Nigeria’s extant medicare predicament where on account of prevailing harsh economic conditions in the country, quality drugs are largely inaccessible and where available, are not affordable to the bulk of the country, leaving low quality drugs in circulation.
Ikechebelu hoped that the public lecture would be able to address this challenge positively.
He also talked about changes he has effected in the university in his short period in office among them the university’s ability to now transmit student’s results within the shortest time after examination.
