Masebo should be commended for ordering firing of pharmacist

By Daily Revelation Editor
The Zambian health system is under serious sabotage and the people contributing massively to a sad state of affairs are the health workers, particularly pharmacists. The other day, Zambians saw the extreme drama between the health minister Sylvia Masebo and a pharmacist at one of the public health facilities in Lusaka. What we saw was not good at. Just to remind our readers who might not have seen the drama: a patient who had gone to seek the services at a named health facility was told to go and buy medicine at a pharmacy outside the facility. Apparently, the pharmacist at this health facility did have medicines in stock but whether intentionally or unintentionally gave a prescription to the patient to buy from a pharmacy outside the health facility.
But the health minister was not one to look the other side on this matter as she faced the officers responsible head on, wondering why the pharmacist gave a prescription to a patient, yet the hospital had the medicine. The visibly annoyed Masebo then instructed that the said pharmacist be fired immediately.
Much as it sounded harsh the manner Masebo came out, we commend her for ordering the firing the pharmacist. We say this because it has become a culture among healthcare providers to be abusing our healthcare system, taking the people of Zambia for granted. Most of our loved ones are dying not because their time has come, but because some of these healthcare providers are denying them the services and medicines. The health system in Zambia has become an enterprise for many healthcare providers. They have built cartels that are benefiting from the medicines bought by the government using tax payers’ money. These cartels have become so powerful and rich at the expense of taxpayers money. Some of these have even opened their own pharmacies in compounds and other areas to which they send patients to buy medicines. We are also aware that a lot of drugs in healthcare facilities are pilfered out and sold or sneaked into private pharmacies. The government is losing a lot of money through this pilferage at industrial scale. Pharmacy business has become a lucrative business in Zambia and we have seen majority of our healthcare providers opening them. We are not against them opening such businesses, what we are against is them stealing public medicines and taking it to their pharmacies.
In a normal society, especially in industrialised nations, public healthcare personnel are not allowed to own or run pharmacy businesses or any other business related to their work. This is to curb stealing of medicines out of health facilities. However, much as we don’t have such a medical culture, our healthcare providers should not take advantage of the weak health system in the country. It is on this basis that we agree with Masebo’s stance to have the erring pharmacist fired. In fact if the ministry is to investigate these health facilities, they will discover that the culture of giving prescription to patients amid availability of medicines is deep-rooted. Thi