A former President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Olumide Akintayo has decried the state of pharmacy practice in Nigeria. Akintayo who made this known at a seminar recently, declared that pharmacy has continued to thrive in an atmosphere of confusion.
“Prevarications and vacillations have become the unenviable cross of the Nigerian Pharmacist,” he noted, adding, “an evaluation of the various sectors of our practice reveals that some aspects epitomise a mass of putrefying sores.” In his speech, tagged “Advancement of The Pharmacy Profession-The Role of The Young Pharmacist”, Akintayo said the optimum performance of pharmacists in Nigeria is largely dependent on good leadership in the country.
He however charged the members of PSN to remain ethical in the discharge of their duties as they hope on the government to provide level playing ground in the health sector.“For us as professionals, the dimension to focus remains the ethical considerations relevant in pharmacy practice.
For those at the helm to provide good leadership and an output that borders on excellence, ethics must remain the watch-word,” he added. Talking about the role of the young pharmacists and future of pharmacy in the country, Akintayo pointed out that the state of academic pharmacy in the nation’s higher institutions is a sorry sight.
“Lack of teaching aids and research grants for the academic pharmacist, the dearth of chemicals, well equipped laboratories and absence of conducive teaching environment, among others characterise the darkness which has of late enveloped the growth of pharmacy in the country.”
“It is indeed sad and worrisome that a profession which should be a celebration of excellence does not live up to this billing often times, since over time it is clear to those who want to see, that we have deliberately refused to rise from declivity to proclivity.The potentials we maintain are however there despite the above shortcomings,” Akintayo said. He therefore, appealed to the National Assembly to amend the proviso which granted doctors the exclusive right to head cancer centers in the country, adding that pharmacists also have the capabilities to head cancer centers.
He said most medical researchers in the world today are not doctors. According to him, “We often mouth global best practices when it suits us and it is a reality today that some of the most prolific researchers in the medical sciences are not doctors.
I recall with some passion that even 60 per cent of the contemporary winners of the Nobel Prize in medicine are not doctors.”
REFERENCE : MEDICAL NEWS
