Pharmacy technologists protest new rules a day after nurses end 43-day strike Pharmaceutical technologists are up in arms over a new set of practice guidelines. Health 45 min ago Listen

It was against this backdrop, with public hospitals only just resuming full nursing coverage and the health sector still absorbing the toll of the strike, that pharmaceutical technologists mobilised on Thursday to oppose the 2026 Good Pharmacy Practice (GPP) Standards, in what protest leaders described as a fight over who gets to keep serving patients at the community level.

Eric Gishane, Secretary-General of the Kenya Pharmaceutical Association, said the draft guidelines introduce a tiered system of pharmacy facilities, Level 1 through Level 6, and restrict pharmaceutical technologists, who hold diplomas, from taking professional responsibility for Level 3 facilities, which make up a large share of the country's mid-level health infrastructure.

Kenneth Omok, national chairman of the Kenyan National Union of Pharmaceutical Technologists, told reporters that the new "pharmacy care centre" category would end community-level services, including accredited family planning programmes, from January 2027, and would restrict the dispensing of certain drug classes at facilities without a pharmacist physically present.