...One year after Minister?s ultimatum


A year after an Indian pharmaceutical company was caught dump ing expired or near expired drugs on the Ghanaian market, the company has still not fulfilled its contractual obligation of replacing the expired drugs.

Following the exposure by Public Agenda last year, the former Minister of Health Dr Richard Anane wrote to Nabros Pharma in Ahmedabad India requesting replacement for the expired drugs. According to the Food and Drugs Board, a first consignment representing a third of the drugs to be replaced was shipped to Ghana more than six months ago but Nabros has since failed to replace the other two-thirds.

?After one third of the products were replaced, the remaining consignment never came in? James Lartey, Public Relations Officer of Food and Drugs Board told Agenda in Accra.

Nabros was also blacklisted for their underhand dealing in the country. A former representative of the Indian company alleged that Nabros was also importing expired drugs and other pharmaceutical products resembling drugs patented by other companies.

?The company is dumping near expiry goods to buyers in Ghana that resulted in enormous losses to some buyers. When the products are rejected by the authorities, in Ghana, management was pressurizing me to solve the issue by unethical means,? Sreedrah Rao, former Business Development Manager for Africa, said in a letter to the Food and Drugs Board copied to the Indian High Commissioner in Ghana.

Following this disclosure Public Agenda was inundated with telephone calls and personal visits by health workers who alleged that a number of underground practices in the drug management practices existed in this country, which allowed unscrupulous individuals and some companies to take advantage of the system to enrich themselves at the expense of health delivery.

It was alleged that some doctors had an obnoxious accord between themselves and a number of pharmaceutical firms or their agents under which these doctors throw their Hippocratic code through the window and prescribe drugs manufactured by these ?understanding? firms to patients when they know that the drugs would not cure the patient.

Many doctors Agenda spoke to do not want to go on record but a number of them were aware of such unsavory practices. The Deputy Registrar of the Pharmacy council, Joseph Nonage told Agenda that speculation is rife that some doctors were in league with drug suppliers to increase the profit margin of these firms> ?But it is difficult to investigate the practice. What the council could do is to caution its members against such practice. Continuing education holds the key.?

The former Honorary Secretary of the Ghana Medical Association Dr K. M. Jehu-Appiah said the issue had come up before the association and that the GMA was investigating the matter.

Pharmacists Kwesi Eghan, Member of the Pharmaceutical society said some of the problems in the industry stemmed from the fact that non-professionals had invaded the business. ?Non-pharmacists are becoming major players. To such people, the ethics of the profession is completely alien. Trade, rather than ethics drives them,? he said.

He said a properly trained pharmacist is likely to do his or her trading ethically. Unfortunately, people who have only profit as their motive are invading the profession. To such people, it is a matter of trade.