Senate mandates usage of local syringe, needles in Federal hospitals

By Tunde Opalana

The Senate on Wednesday mandated both the Federal ministries of Health and Trade and Investment to develop a policy that will boost manufacturing of syringe and needles locally as well as protecting local manufacturers.

The policy, according to the chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Senator Ibrahim Oloriegbe must ensure that syringe and needles use in Federal hospitals across the country must be sourced from local manufacturers.

This came during a joint probing of a petition by the Medical Device Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MDMAN) the producers of syringes and needles by both the Senate Committee on Health and of Industry Trade and Investment.

The association in its petition, had alleged that government at all tiers were not patronising local manufacturers but instead patronise foreign syringes and needles.

The Health Committee Chairman during the probe urged both the ministers of Health and that of Industry, Trade and Investment, Chief Niyi Adebayo, to through the planned policy encourage the syringes and needles manufacturing firms in the country.

Sen. Oloriegbe said, “we want you (Health Minister), to come up with a policy that will make it mandatory for all federal health institutions, the FMCs and teaching hospitals to use locally manufactured syringes and needles.

“That is the best way to encourage local manufacturers.

“It will be in our recommendations as a committee that all federally owned hospitals, without exception must procure and use only locally manufactured syringes and needles from companies that are registered and approved by NAFDAC to produce them in Nigeria.

“We will also demand that locally manufactured syringes and vaccines should be used to administer all vaccines procured by government”

Also the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, told the Senate that his ministry would ensure that all Federal Government-owned health institutions in the country procure and use only syringes and needles manufactured in Nigeria.

Osagie also assured the panel that his ministry would ensure that the Federal Executive Council approve the policy within the next weeks.

The minister specifically said that it will be also be an offence for any federal health institutions in the country to administer vaccines procured by Federal Government, with foreign syringes and needles when the policy is in place.

“We have listened to the position of the committee and we want to assure the Chairman and other distinguished members that we will come up with the policy and get approval from the Federal Executive Council within six weeks as suggested by the Committee.

“We are in support of the move to encourage local manufacturing of syringes and needles because it is the best way to create jobs and take Nigerians out of poverty .

“We are all interested in developing local capacities to encourage local manufacturers is an item on the agenda of the President t o take 100 million Nigerians out of poverty”, he said.

The Director General of the National Agency for Food, Drugs Administration and Control. Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, shocked the panel by saying that the local manufacturers of syringes and needles in Nigeria lacked the capacity to produce the required quantity needed in Nigeria hence the agency licensed some people to import the shortfall.

Manufacturers of medical devices at the meetingappealed to federal government to implement the national policy on distribution of syringes to prevent importation of substandard medical devices in the nation hospitals.

Addressing the gathering, President of the Medical Devices Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MEDMAN), Mr Akin Oyediran said implementation of the policy would stop importation of low quality medical devices that may expose patients to health dangers.

Oyediran explained that the Backward Integration Policy (BIP) entails Nigerian manufacturers’ right to produce syringes for local market and can import same to meet local demands if their factories could not produce enough quantity to satisfy local needs .

He said, “We have the capacity to produce the required syringes and needles that we need in the country.

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“One of the manufacturers in Nigeria, the Jubilee Syringe of which I am the MD is the largest manufacturers of Syringes in Africa.

“We have just been approached by other countries in Africa to please export our syringes to them. There is no doubt about having the capacity. I think NAFDAC is speaking based on old data because our company is now about three years old. We produce over 1.7 million syringes per day, six days a week.

“We welcome the move by the Senate asking the minister of health to come up with a policy that would give exclusive rights to the local manufacturers of syringes to produce the products for all federally funded health institutions in Nigeria.

“The local manufacturers are actually the highest supplies of syringes and needles for hospitals. There is no point why government hospitals should use imported syringes when we have the locally manufactured ones