… marks World Pharmacists Day
Pharmacistss in Nigeria today joined their counterparts all over the world to mark the World Pharmacists Day amidst calls on President Muhammadu Buhari by the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) to reconstitute the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN), which was recently dissolved alongside the boards of other parastatals. The World Pharmacists Day is marked every year on September 25.
Addressing a press conference to mark the day yesterday in Lagos, PSN President, Mr. Olumide Akintayo, disclosed that statutory functions such as the accreditation of training facilities for pharmacists and support staff in pharmacy have been hampered since the dissolution of the board just as “routine practice matters” such as monitoring and control are at the moment, “not in the best of health”. According to him, it has also been impossible to get the council to strategize to boost efforts of the Registry of PCN.
The PSN President implored the Federal Government to halt the drift in the operational efficiency of the PCN by reconstituting it now and subsequently invoking the spirit of the law that provides for perpetual succession in the enabling act.
Mr. Akintayo declared that the pharmacy practice environment had got to “a most wretched level, which logically cannot afford another vacuum in terms of regulatory control.” According to him, disciplinary procedures must be a continuous phenomenon on erring pharmacist or pharmaceutical company, adding that the absence of PCN Governing Council in a strategic profession like pharmacy boosts the fake drug syndrome albeit tragically.
The PSN President also lamented the unsatisfactory and inadequate access to essential drugs and other healthcare commodities in Nigeria and other African countries, saying the provision of adequate healthcare to Africa’s teeming population remains a major challenge for governments across the continent.
“Unsatisfactory and inadequate access to essential drugs and other healthcare commodities is a key limitation that impacts on people’s health in most developing and least developed economies,” he said.
The World Pharmacists Day was established by the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), to bring attention to pharmacists and the positive benefits they offer when it comes to health. The theme of the 2015 World Pharmacy Day is “Pharmacists: Your Partner in Health.”
