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The crackdown on illegal pharmacies in four counties in Western Kenya is quite appropriate and merits our support.
However, it is reactive and comes too late in the day. It is just but the tip of the iceberg, underscoring a far bigger problem in the health sector.
Not only do we have hundreds of illegal pharmacies but also clinics and personnel. This is a major threat to citizens’ health and must be dealt with comprehensively and conclusively.
The problem is that surveillance is episodic; conducted once amid high drama and fanfare, then things go mute and the illegal practitioners crawl out of the woodwork to continue with their dubious activities. Every often, the media gives detailed accounts of unlawful medical establishments and practitioners and whenever such happens, the authorities spring into frenzied action but go to slumber soon thereafter.
This is the reason we demand a coordinated and sustained onslaught on illegal pharmacies and clinics.
Quacks must be cleared and the public sensitised on the dangers of patronising those unauthorised pharmacies and clinics.
After the raid in Bungoma, Kakamega, Busia and Vihiga counties, where it shut down 86 illegal pharmacies, the Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB) must quickly conduct a countrywide inspection of all drug outlets and rein in the illegal operators.
Importantly, the board must investigate how the pharmacies are approved, who are behind them and why they continue to thrive irrespective of their illegitimacy.
These illegal entities are potential dispensers of fake or expired drugs because they do not subscribe to professional standards. They are also likely to be involved in the illegal trade of drugs meant for public health facilities; denying citizens of their entitlements. Also, due to their underhand practices, they undercut legitimate businesses and distort the market.
Provision of quality healthcare is one of the four priority agenda items for the government. But this is predicated on a clean set-up where service providers, including clinics and pharmacies, are properly constituted and operate above board. Contrary arrangement is perilous.
Health Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki must take up the matter and get the regulators — the Pharmacy and Poisons Board and the Kenya Medical and Practitioners Board — to clear all unauthorised pharmacies and clinics. Time is now to stop illegal practices in the health sector.
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