Good news for Nigerians, as the Federal Government has approved a new policy known as Medipool, which may lead to lower costs for drugs and other medical consumables.
This is part of the outcomes of the Federal Executive Council meeting chaired by President Bola Tinubu at the State House Abuja on Monday.
The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Ali Pate, said the Medipool is a group purchasing organization for competitive pricing and to be a supplier of essential medicines and healthcare products across Nigeria.
According to Professor Pate, Medipool was developed to consolidate demand from basic healthcare centres and federal tertiary hospitals, enabling the government to leverage bulk purchasing power to lower medical costs.
“Today, council approved Medipool, it’s a group purchasing organization for competitive pricing and to be supplier of essential medicines and healthcare products across Nigeria, through the federal government’s intervention, the basic health care provision fund, but also eventually outside that, through federal tertiary hospitals, so that as a buyer, we can negotiate lower prices.
“So it’s using monopsony power of government as a large buyer of those commodities, negotiate lower prices and then channel those commodities.
“And the scope includes, but it’s not limited to procurement planning, distribution monitoring, supply chain, logistics management, quality assurance, regulatory compliance, as well as ensuring that local manufacturers are supported, and 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.”
The Health Minister explained that the Medipool model was benchmarked against similar initiatives in countries such as Kenya, South Africa, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia.
He emphasized that the administration aims to support local manufacturing, promote import substitution, and ensure Nigerians have access to high-quality, affordable medicines.
The FEC also awarded a N2.3 billion contract for the procurement of a state-of-the-art cardiac catheterisation machine for Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital (UDUTH) in Sokoto.
This, the Minister explained, is essentially to help the university of hospital provide diagnosis and treatment services for heart and blood vessel problems, heart attacks, irregular heart rates.
“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,” he said