By Hassan Zaggi
Since the past eight years, the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) sealed over 25000 illegal premises across the country.
The outgoing Registrar of the PCN, Dr. Elijah Mohammed disclosed this at the public presentation of his scorecard in Abuja, Tuesday.
The illegal premises, he said, were sealed due to various reasons including poor hygienic environment, poor documentation, improper regularization of papers and improper behaviours in their shops and premises.
He further disclosed that before he was appointed eight years ago, there were 17 pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences faculties in the country, however, eight years after, the number of faculties have increased to 30, some will kick-start in the next few months.
“The illegal pharmaceutical premises that we closed down within the past eight years are over 25000 across the federation.
“They were closed down due to various reasons including poor hygienic environment, poor documentation, improper regularization of papers and improper behaviours in the shops and premises,” he stressed.
Speaking on achievements, the outgoing Registrar said: “The PCN is in charge of the control and regulation of the pharmacy education, training and practice.
“In education, we have been able to put in place a new programme which is Doctor of pharmacy which combine both clinical and non-clinical concept of pharmacy practice.
“Before now, the practice was product focused, but now it is patient focused. What that means is that whether you are in production, sale, distribution or dispensing of drugs, the patient is the focus and what impact it is going to have on our patient and with that concern, everybody is sitting up now to ensure that whatever product is coming out, the patient is paramount.”
Dr. Mohammed further noted that some of the challenges the PCN was confronted with within the past 8 years were that human resources and infrastructure.
“We don’t have enough human resources, two; is infrastructure, we don’t have enough vehicles to go round to monitor and carry out enforcement across the community,” he noted.
He, however, applauded regulatory agencies including NAFDAC, the Nigeria Police Force and the others for their cooperation and support over the years.
“The Federal Ministry of Health have been very wonderful in our operations. They have been giving us all the policy support. The judiciary has also been supportive in terms of dispatch of cases,” he said.
On his part, the Chairman of the PCN, Prof. Ahmed Mora, applauded the outgoing Registrar for putting together the scorecard saying that his efforts in mobilizing development partners to support the activities of the Council made the difference.
While describing Dr. Mohammed as a very lucky person, Prof Mora, said: “One of the many things that Dr. Mohammed excelled as Registrar is his relationship with Development Partners.
“The capacity building programmes initiated by these partners have been wonderful. Indeed, the Development Partners were to some extent deeply immersed in the implementation of the mandates of the Registry.
“Today’s programme, which is with the full support of Society for Family Health (SFH) and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is one of such commendable collaborations for which the Council is very appreciative.”
