Pharmacists warn ministry against escalating quackery in health system
Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN) has advised the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) not to permit Patent and Proprietary Medicine Vendors Licence (PPMVL) holders to handle fresh dimensions of Family Planning services.
A statement, which was personally signed and made available to Businessday Sunday by the chairman of APCN, Sam Adekola stated that authorising PPMVL to handle services such as sales and dispensing of both oral and injectable contraceptives in Nigeria will escalate quackery in the health system.
“Today as it stands, any plot or scheme to involve untrained hands in the sale and dispensing of high grade medicines like steroidal preparations under the hypocrisy of accessibility to health or some other availability expediencies to provide unprofessionally inclined services to consumers of health will only make them more vulnerable to morbidity and mortality which of course aggravates our well known negative health indices”, the statement added.
It therefore, stressed the need for FMOH and the international NGOS to engage the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) which registers PPMVL holders in Nigeria.
The statement reads: “Such rules of engagement will confirm that the number of registered PPMVL holders in Nigeria will be lesser than 50,000 which confirms even the pool of available registered PPMVL will not provide the huge network the FMOH and the NGOS anticipate in the execution of this unholy implementation plan.
“Government that seeks to redress the damage inflicted on the image of our presently-rated 187 out of 191 health systems globally should know this cannot be a route to ameliorating the permanent disorders and chaos in our healthcare sector.
“To amplify this position is that the typical unresponsiveness of government is what allows the existence of about 2 million unregistered PPMVLS which are common-place all over Nigeria. Except if government decides to legitimise the illegitimacy of the unregistered itinerant medicine sellers, there can be no impact by PPMVL holders in this concept of opening up Family Planning Services in Nigeria.
“In a very strict sense, it will amount to a monumental breach of both the PCN and NAFDAC Act for the supervisory FMOH to contemplate handing over the use of specialised care-products to persons who are not designated to do same under the laws earlier referred to.
“The condition precedent to earn a PPMVL in Nigeria today is to be above 18 years old as well as an ability to read and write. How reasonable will it then be to allow such persons to inject consumers of health with any drug at all in view of the attendant risks?”