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Retail pharmacies already serve customers who need more than medicines. Offering basic tests and follow-up care could expand their business, but requires investment in equipment and trained staff. Pharmacist and healthcare adviser Kemi Agbebi argues that philanthropies should finance these upgrades alongside the stock that keeps pharmacies running.
“The future of African healthcare does not lie in building more centralised fortresses of care but in decentralisation. And the most powerful, underutilised node for this decentralised network is already sitting on your street corner: the retail pharmacy,” says Ms Agbebi.
She proposes equipment leasing and digital links to insurers to support broader services, with regulations allowing trained pharmacists to take on more primary care.
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