Pharmacists Call for Amendment of University Teaching Hospital Act

The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Lagos Branch has called on the National Assembly to amend the law establishing University Teaching Hospitals in the country to save the system from total collapse.

Lagos PSN chairman, Mr. Gbolagade Iyiola, who described the University Teaching Hospital Act as an obnoxious legislation which has retarded development of the health services delivery system in the country said the two major challenges that worry the pharmacists’ body are: The amendment of the University Teaching Hospital Act by the National Assembly and establishment of the Faculty of Pharmacy, Lagos State University.

Speaking at the 2022 annual luncheon in Lagos, Iyiola said that the law, Decree 10 of 1985, has been the bane of the Nigerian health system for 37 years, adding that it encouraged dangerous manipulation of physicians in Nigeria with the tacit support of government at all levels to the detriment of the nation’s health system delivery.

“The existing University Teaching Hospital Act was a military creation which was invented as decree 10 of 1985. This piece of obnoxious legislation has been the albatross on the neck of our health system for 37 destructive years.

“It remains the foundation for the dangerous manipulation of physicians in Nigeria who with the tacit support of government at all levels interpreted ‘medially qualified’ as a phraseology that implies bagging of MBBS or MBChB or its equivalent in whatever form.”

He further said, “This clause has been employed in truncating normative civility in our collapsed health sector where physician emperors are foisted on overall structures of healthcare at federal, state, and local government levels. Prior to 1985, it was health administrators or managers who steer the ship of our various health workers to stick and excel in their areas of due competencies.”

Iyiola, who expressed regrets that the Nigerian health system collapsed following the forced takeover of the administration by physicians, also lamented the negative health indices in the aftermath of the development as reasons to amend this Act.

‘’We had a virile health system which produced strong health institutions like University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, which was rated at a crucial juncture as one of the top five health facilities in the Commonwealth under the watch of an administrator designated as Hospital Governor.

“Our health system was cruising with fruitfulness and resourcefulness such that even the famed Saudi Royal Family accessed healthcare at UCH, Ibadan.

“A few decades down the line when a physician takeover was compelled, the success stories changed into lamentations and negative health indices including staggering infant mortality rates; poor under-five mortality rate; high maternal mortality; worsening morbidity and mortality index in the health system, and collapsed infrastructures in hospitals.

“Others are fake drug syndrome (as a result of the inexperience administration and management of the Federal Ministry of Health); incessant health workers’ strikes and diminished productivity, as well as stagnation of wages, allowances, and benefits of non-physician health workers.

“The list is indeed unlimited and these factors, as well as countless others, have catalysed the health sector into a permanent template,” he said.

He further claimed that the last three successive dispensations were presided over by Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, Prof. Isaac Adewole and the incumbent, Dr. Osagie Enahire in that order since 2011; a seeming death knell has been dangling on Nigeria’s health system because the “inexperienced physicians” literally turned the FMoH into an official annex of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) secretariat.

“Some of the landmark ineptitude of these three past and incumbent ministers include: A determined bid to frustrate the specialist programmes of all non-physician health workers especially those that clamoured for consultant status.

“For almost 30 years, prior to the January 6, 2014 strike of the health workers, no non-physician health worker in the FHI was allowed to get to the peak of his career as director on the equivalent of GL 17 because the Chief Medical Directors (CMDs) and the physicians caucus in the FHI deliberately twisted the provisions of the University Teaching Hospital Act to imply that it provided for only two directors which were in the administrative and clinical services directorate of the hospitals. Some of the CMDs have glaringly refused to implement existing FMoH circulars.

Continuing, he listed others to include “the deliberate frustration of every attempt to implement appropriate wages for health workers despite CBAs MOLLs, agreement etc by the FMoH. A striking one remains the determined efforts of the FMoH to frustrate the adjustment of CONHESS as was done with CONMESS since 2014.

“We at the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (Lagos State Branch) have continued to critically evaluate this scenario and we call on the National Assembly to hold a public hearing on the need to amend the appropriate sections of the University Teaching Hospital Act to pave the way for robust and dynamic health service in tandem with global best practices.

“Specifically, the National Assembly must approve of a new condition precedent that opens the closed and restricted frontiers of the leadership of the federal health institutions to include seasoned administrators and managers of cognate experience in the ultimate public and professional interest.

Also in the address presented by Iyiola on the occasion, the Lagos State Branch of PSN called for the establishment of the Faculty of Pharmacy at the state-owned university, Lagos State University.

“In 2019 when His Excellency, Babajide Sanwo-Olu visited and solicited the support of members of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (Lagos State Branch) in the build-up to the governorship election in the state, members canvassed the need for an autonomous and approvable Faculty of Pharmacy in the Centre of Excellence.

“Today, we observed that lesser endowed states continue to establish pharmacy schools which are genuinely needed to stem the tide of a whooping deficiency in health manpower needs. At today’s rate of one pharmacist to over 5,000 patients, Nigeria seriously falls short of the current World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendation.

“We at the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria believe albeit strongly that an improvement in pharmaceutical manpower manufactured drugs and phytomedicines, community pharmacists who can amplify services in the rural areas deserve urgent attention,’’ he said.