Row endangering patients - Daily Nation

A conflict is raging in the health sector that does not augur well for the country. It is a fight between two key regulatory agencies under the Ministry of Health for the control of the lucrative pharmaceutical business. It has been cited as a key factor fuelling the proliferation of counterfeit medicines. This has grave health implications.

It is ironical, as these government agencies are set up to help safeguard the lives of Kenyans by ensuring that only quality drugs with proven efficacy are allowed into the market. The country cannot afford a situation where officials in rival agencies put their own interests first, to the detriment of the very taxpayers who sustain the agencies.

There is absolutely no justification for the fierce rivalry between the National Quality Control Laboratory and the Pharmacy and Poisons Board. It is a matter that outgoing Health Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki has had to deal with, but it still persists. It is an issue that her successor will be called upon to resolve as soon as he arrives.

Over the years, this key sector has had to grapple with cartels who use their connections to force consignments of imported substandard medicines to be offloaded in public hospitals and health centres. Patients end up being treated with fake drugs that only worsen their conditions. They must not be allowed to continue to wreck patients’ lives.

The row has not been helped by court cases that have made it difficult to effect any meaningful management changes. So, the problem is less with the institutions themselves and has more to do with the personnel. The parliamentary Committee on Health, responding to the rift between the two agencies, gave them time to negotiate. However, more than a year later, there has been no respite. This is too important a sector to be sacrificed at the altar of individual interests. There is a need to crack the whip so that agencies can strictly operate within their defined roles and responsibilities to enhance the delivery of health services.