Pharmacist Seeks Instrument To End Quackery

A Senior Pharmacist in Garki Hospital, Abuja, Mr James Edache has appealed to the Federal Government to enforce policies that would end activities of quacks in the pharmaceutical industry.
Edache made this appeal in an interview with newsmen in Abuja, yesterday.
Edache said the appeal became necessary because some businessmen came together and formed parallel bodies to resist the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria from regulating them from dispensing drugs, among others.
He urged the federal government to put in place policies, infrastructure, enabling environment and empower law enforcement agents in order to get rid of quack pharmacists from the country.
“As I speak, there are group of persons coming under the umbrella of different bodies to fight the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria, even taking them to court.
“These people who are engaging in open market in Onitsha, Lagos and Kano, are always coming together as a body of businessmen in the pharmacy sector.
“And they are working seriously using their money to fight the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria,” he said.
Edache decried the engagement of apprentices in pharmacy stores, adding that drugs dispensing should be left in the hands licensed pharmacists.
“It has got to a stage where somebody now serves apprenticeship in the pharmacy; whether the person went to university or not.
“The person you serve will open a pharmacy store for you, we do not learn pharmacy like carpentry,” he warned.
Edache, however, advised pharmacy store owners to desist from the practice of engaging their family members who were not trained as pharmacists, adding that they had rather engaged professional hands.
“A lot of people are taking law into their hands by doing what they should not do. For example, the recent trend of chain pharmacy stores.
“Because they are entrepreneurs, they want to maximise profit, so they employed fewer professional, instead engaged their family members who are secondary school leavers.
“They begin by telling them to keep the shop and floor tidy, after a while, this persons get familiar with the product, before long they begin to claim that they know all the drugs,” he said.
Edache said that the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria under the current leadership of Elijah Mohammed had performed creditably despite the oppositions.
The Tide source reports that Pharmacists Council of Nigeria is the body mandated to regulate the practice of pharmacists and issuing of licence to university graduates.