Tunisia blocks payments to private pharmacies
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Webdo
Tunisia’s Social Affairs Minister, Issam Lahmar, orders payments owed to private pharmacies to be suspended until they restore third-party payments. The measure responds to the suspension announced by their union from 1 November, amid unpaid National Health Insurance Fund bills, according to Webdo.
Tunisia’s Minister of Social Affairs, Issam Lahmar, has ordered the suspension of payments owed to private pharmacies under the third-party payment system. He announced the measure on Thursday 5 November 2026 before a parliamentary health committee, specifying that payments would remain blocked until pharmacies resumed the system.
Issam Lahmar said he had issued the order a few hours before a payment instalment was due on 3 November. The Tunisian Union of Private Pharmacy Owners announced on 30 October that it would suspend third-party payments from 1 November, citing delayed payments by the National Health Insurance Fund (CNAM), Tunisia’s public health insurance body.
In July, pharmacy representatives had already threatened to halt the system if the CNAM did not honour its commitments. Claims corresponding to two months of 2025 reimbursements were then estimated at around 80 million dinars by the union’s president, Zoubeïr Guiga. Pharmacies had also suspended the provision of medicines under the third-party payment system in December 2025.
The ministerial decision follows the pharmacies’ announcement that they would suspend the system from 1 November, as reported in their notice. The dispute pits pharmacists against the CNAM over payments owed and leaves the insured affected by the consequences of the interruption of third-party payments.
