Raphael Ede, Enugu
The Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN), has charged pharmacists in Enugu state to rise up and ensure that the Federal Government policy documents on Open Drug Market were implemented for the health of Nigerians.
The Registrar of PCN, Dr. Elijah Muhammed gave this charge in Enugu during the naming ceremony of the conference hall of PCN building at the South East Zonal Office.
Mohammed said that since 2015 the Federal Government came up with the Coordinated Wholesale Centres (CWC) to accommodate individual’s who were in open drug market to ensure Nigerians gets quality and efficacious drugs in our markets, drug dealers in Enugu, Aba and some other places have shown less concerned to implement it.
The Registrar explained that the essence of having CWC was to safeguard the health of Nigerians and to ensure that quality medicines are made available for Nigerians.
He said “the issue of quality medicine is not just about how it is produced. Quality medicine starts from production, storage, distribution, sales and dispensing before the patient takes it.
“So if the look out from the production yes the drug would have been very ok and 100% perfect, but when the storage facilities are not good enough these drugs are chemicals, heat, temperature changes lead to degradation and these are very common in unregulated environment like open drug market. And the government is very concerned about about it.
“Since the temperatures are not regulated there is tendency of these drugs to degenerate and become more poisonous than what it’s supposed to be. They may not likely be what was passed by NAFDAC for human consumption. That is why the government has come up with Coordinated Wholesale Centre to accommodate this individual’s who are in open drug market.
“This coordinated wholesale centre (CWC) is a well regulated environment both in the physical structures and the temperature so that product going in there must be certified and product going out will also be certified. Therefore ensuring that the product living those environment for human consumption are fit for human consumption.”
He said that pharmacists as the custodians of drugs, they are supposed to galvanize drug dealers so that they can key into the Federal Government policy, adding, “So that when the enforcement comes and they are now closed down and detained nobody would start crying that the Federal Government is had on Igbos” whom he said were 90 to 95 in the business.
He also said that the Igbo who were in the majority in the open drug market had the penchant not to do things until there sanctions. “We know that in the Igbo parlance they say if the rain does not beat an Igbo man he doesn’t buy an umbrella. I’m sorry to use that but you will now find out that most of them are still thinking it is business as usual.”
He said it would be unfair on the Federal Government to say that government was hard on Igbos when the government decided to enforce the implementation, adding “that is why the government has given them a long time since 2015 and none of them has taken it up as a responsibility.
“It is high time they started getting these people coordinated and if they are having difficulties in approaching the governor of the State for that the honorable minister can assist them by writing a letter appealing to the governor to make it available for them because we are talking of the health of the people and nothing else.”
