The Federal Medical Centre (FMC) Bida in Niger State has entered into partnership with 18 multinational drug companies for the direct purchase of drugs.
The centre’s medical director, Dr Abubakar Usman, who disclosed this in Bida at the weekend, said the companies include world-class drug firms like May and Baker that routinely supply drugs to the hospital at company prices.
“This development was necessitated by the ever increasing cost of drugs in the open market sequel to the low naira to dollar ratio. Inflation has made the cost of some of the drugs to jerk by about 300 per cent and this is taking a huge toll on patients,” he said.
He said the partnership is part of measures to alleviate the suffering of indigent patients and for the benefit of the host community.
“We have put measures in place to enable our patients get their drugs at affordable rate, by this we don’t stress our clients because we know their purchasing power, we get our drugs directly from the companies that are reliable and affordable for our patients”, Dr Usman said.