By CHIOMA OBINNA
Pharmacists under the auspices of Association of community Pharmacists, ACPN, want the National Assembly to help sponsor bills that will review the old pharmacy laws that have bedeviled the practice of pharmacy in the country.

Outgoing Lagos State Chairman of the Association, Pharm. Felix Anieh said the review will guarantee qualitative pharmaceutical care services as it operates in Ghana, South Africa and other countries.

Anieh who spoke during the Association’s AGM decried the lingering crisis within the Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria, PCN. He urged President Goodluck Jonathan to as a matter of urgency; reconstitute the Board of the PCN while admonishing Nigerian pharmacists to uphold the sanctity and integrity of the profession.

According to him, “It is now a common occurrence that some of

colleagues connive with their employers to construct and erect illegal pharmacy emblems in their premises. This does not speak well of a pharmacy profession.”

In her report, Secretary of the Association, Pharm. Bola Paul- Ozieh

described 2011 as a year the National Agency Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, unleashed a wave of terror on community pharmacies. Paul – Ozieh alleged that NAFDAC inspectors were visiting, making allegations and subsequently imposing penalties on pharmacies.

“It is regrettable that some of the issues pharmacies were penalised on were more or less non issue. To avoid future harassment especially in the areas of expired drugs, the Exco planned to take up expired drug collection & destruction exercise.

She noted that more illegal premises are springing up across the country.

On the NHIS, Paul- Ozieh said that there has not been positive development adding that campaign of one stop, one shop had become order of the day in the scheme.

“The one stop, one shop in healthcare delivery is more or less replicating private general hospitals and thereby creating a gulf between the patient and healthcare provider. She warned that the syndrome of one stop, one shop could defeat the basis of NHIS.