Pharmacist law against quacks to begin April

The Registrar, Pharmacists Council of Nigeria, Elijah Mohammed, said on Tuesday a new law that would checkmate quack pharmacists would commence in April this year.

Mohammed disclosed this at the 9th oath-taking/induction ceremony of pharmacy graduands of the Dora Akunyili College of Pharmacy, Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State.

He said the government had identified the menace of the quacks and was making everything possible to flush them out.

The college graduated a total of 121 graduands in the 2018/2019 academic session.

“By April, a new law for pharmacist practice will be in place. And for those individuals in the pharmaceutical landscape, we are going to catch up with them; we are going to flush them out; we are going to catch-up with them; those laws are going to catch up with them and by the time we start implementing those laws, they just have to pack their things and look for another business to do,” he said.

He implored the graduating students to be committed to the service of humanity and put their patients first rather than money, saying “you are going out there to make people well.”

In his address, the Vice-Chancellor, Igbinedion University, Prof. Lawrence Ezemonye, called on the PCN to go for digital innovation.

The VC said, “The pharmacist occupies a very important position in the hierarchy of health-care administration in Nigeria and plays a key role in patients’ therapy management, making them feel better and get well as quickly as possible.

“I call on the Pharmacist Council of Nigeria to advance the course for digital innovation in pharmacy to include but not limited to electronic prescription, robotics for central presumption, processing and nationwide monitoring for quacks and fake drugs,” he said.

Keynote speaker at the induction, Prof. Mbang Femi-Oyewo, urged the graduating students to add value to the profession to enable pharmacists to be more effective in service delivery to the society.