Pharmacists protest new rules limiting pharmacy practice

Pharmacy and Poisons Board inspector conducts post-market surveillance to ensure health products meet required standards. [Benard Orwongo, Standard]

The Kenya Pharmaceutical Association and the Kenya National Union of Pharmaceutical Technologists have threatened to down tools over the new guidelines that bar them from practising in Level 3 and 4 health facilities.

The over 11,000 members have termed the new guidelines discriminatory, as they strip qualified members of the ability to handle essential medicines.

Under the new guidelines adopted by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB), only practitioners with degree-level qualifications would be allowed to administer medicines from Level three and four hospitals.

Pharmaceutical Association Chair Chitechi Amboka said its members constitute over 70 per cent of all healthcare practitioners and therefore play a crucial part in the daily operations of healthcare.

Amboka rejected the new draft guidelines of the 2026 Goods and Pharmacy Practice, which are expected to take effect in January 2027.

He warned that the new guidelines risk causing a system collapse across the country's healthcare facilities at the time the government was implementing the Universal health Coverage (UHC).

“The new guidelines adopted by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board will bar over 11,000 of our members from handling medicines across 3,569 Level three to six public facilities retaining those functions to only degree holders,” said Amboka.

Addressing the media in Naivasha, Amboka said they will hold a protest on Thursday to demand the withdrawal of the guidelines and threatened to ask pharmacists to close down their facilities until their demands are met.

Amboka said the contentious guidelines were gazetted before consensus was reached with all stakeholders in the sector and have petitioned the Ministry of Health and the Poisons Board to no avail.

The chairman said all practitioners holding diploma are competent and approved and should practice pharmacy related duties across healthcare facilities in the country.

He called on the PPB to instead focus on the growing concerns of practicing quacks in the sector who continue to endanger the health of Kenyans.

Kenya National Union of Pharmaceutical Technologists Kenneth Omogi said they would hold demonstrations against the new guidelines as they were not consistent with established laws in the industry.

Omogi said they were open to regulation on safe medicines and its members had necessary qualifications, training and were licensed to practice by the Pharmacy and Poisons Board.

He warned that once the new guidelines take effect starting January 2027, they would have a huge impact on the government's agenda for Universal Health Coverage, especially on access to affordable care.

Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale and PPB have rejected the claims as inaccurate.

The Ministry of Health clarified that the standards do not bar diploma holders from practising at any level of care.

Instead, the policy establishes competency-based tiers that separate general pharmacy practice from the role of a superintendent—who holds ultimate regulatory and safety oversight over complex or high-risk pharmaceutical services.