Increasing supply chain efficiency and resilience

Haruna Muhammad Sabo received an RHSC LAPTOP Scholarship to study for his Certification in Logistics, Transportation and Distribution at the Pamela Steele Academy. Here’s how he put into practice his newly acquired skills.

How did you first become interested in supply chain management?

As a newly graduated pharmacist, I was posted to the State Medical Store in Jigawa, a northern state in Nigeria. I quickly realized that supply chain management is an integral part of pharmacy work, so I joined several professional organizations like IAPHL and it was at a SAPICS event in 2020 where I first became interested in pursuing a supply chain certification. Through IAPHL’s listserv I came to know about the opportunities LAPTOP provides. It had been my dream to become certified in Supply Chain Management (SCM), and winning the scholarship was a dream come true.

What do you do in your daily work?

I manage a state warehouse, so I’m responsible for overseeing efficient operations, ensuring that medicines are received, stored, and distributed to over 1,000 healthcare facilities on time, and accurately. That’s more than 90% of all healthcare facilities in my state, so it is a pretty big responsibility. We also supply private clinics.

We operate a Drug Revolving Fund (DRF) — a scheme where drugs and medical consumables are sold at cost-price, plus a mark-up. The income from the mark-up is used to replenish stocks, while ensuring that the drugs remain affordable to those who need them.

So, this motivates even the private clinics to come and buy from our Medical Store. It also protects against inferior quality medicines, often available on the open market.

How did you apply what you learned to your workplace?

Soon after completing my course of study, I was able to put in place an Electronic Logistics Management Information System (e-LMIS). Most of the warehouses in Nigeria use manual forms of inventory management. When we monitored manually, we could never fully capture an accurate monthly reconciliation — that is, the process of comparing our inventory data with what we physically have in stock. Now, with the e-LMIS, we can finish this task in record time. We’ve been able to improve the productivity of the warehouse and ensure optimal efficiency.

I have now trained my colleagues in the use of this modern system, and other technologies I’ve learned how to use, and we have a more confident and professional workforce.

We get more work done, and we serve more customers. The customers are the most important focus of my job.

What is a priority area you are working in right now?

In Jigawa State, the state government provides free maternal, newborn, and child health supplies and services, but this is limited to secondary (and very few primary) health care facilities. So, the system is still flawed because coverage is patchy and unavailable at certain times. We are looking for a way to improve the system to be accessible on demand, and for it to be extended to all the health facilities within the state.

Pregnancy-related issues are unfortunately common here because many women tend to give birth at home and shy away from health facilities either because they are illiterate or are afraid of costs building up. Many women even forgo free postnatal checkups. So, awareness building is of prime importance.

What is your vision for healthcare in your area?

It is always better for our own people to introduce health programs within our local community. There is a lot of hesitancy in rural areas where people don’t feel comfortable accepting counselling and services from practitioners they don’t know, even more so if they are from a different country. So, a lot of my work is also about mitigating hesitancy and making sure that my colleagues and I build up a familiar, reassuring presence for our customers.

I am also very focused on building resilience. COVID-19 exposed the weakness of supply chain systems in Nigeria; in the health sector, we experienced scarcity of essential medicines and sudden price surges in most commodities. As part of its response, Jigawa State is transforming its Central Medical Store to a pharmaceutical company to accommodate local manufacturing of essential medicines to serve our states and our environs. We are still at the planning stage of the manufacturing arm of JIPHARMA, but we are ready for intensive growth in our state health sector when that happens.