As part of activities to mark the World Pharmacy Day, September 25, the Clinical Pharmacists Association of Nigeria (CPAN) has said that there is no primary healthcare without pharmacists.
Chairman, CPAN, Dr. Joseph Madu, in his remarks at an occasion to mark the day with the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) Rivers State Chapter, tagged ‘PSN Rivers State Week 2023’, said: “For me, I can say that pharmacy profession has never been better and sweeter than it is, as of today since I took the noble oath as a Pharmacist.
“A lot of successes, advancements and breakthroughs have been recorded by the profession especially with respect to direct individual patients and clients or individual population care.”
Madu said aside drug manufacturing and dispensing, which have been the well-known roles of pharmacists, clinical pharmacy and its vehicle of conveyance known as pharmaceutical care have taken roots in almost all advanced and advancing countries of the world.
“Today, it is also crystal clear that there is no primary health care without pharmacists.
And any health system that takes the roles of pharmacists for granted is bound to fail.
Pharmacists are involved in the administration of primary health care services such as treatment of minor ailments, immunization and vaccination, collaborative management of chronic ailments etc.,” he said.
Madu said pharmacists now engage in the drug use process, which emphasises prevention, detection, categorisation and resolution of potential or actual drug therapy problems and a lot of other clinical care activities in which patients are the primary beneficiaries, the pharmacist is indeed worth celebrating.
The CPAN Chair said in celebrating the pharmacist who is the only healthcare professional that excels more than any other health care professional in the knowledge of drug actions, “I will like to remember the words of a former President of the United States of America (John F. Kennedy) who said: ‘If there were no pharmacists, the world would have created one’. Also, a former Director General of the World Health Organisation in the person of Richardson, said: ‘Without pharmacists (drugs), a health service is without substance and credibility’.”
Madu said the pharmacist is indeed worth celebrating by the whole world especially as drugs must be utilised either at the initiation or terminal stage of almost all other forms of care by all medical professionals.
He called on governments and populace not to fail in tapping from the abundance of resources domiciled within every pharmacist professional.
Madu, also, called on generalist clinical pharmacists to endeavor to specialize in one area of clinical pharmacy or the other such as cardiology pharmacy, endocrinology pharmacy, oncology, infectious disease etc.
He said with specialisation, the pharmacist will not only remain expert but specialist, and that is to the advantage of the healthcare industry as it will no doubt help in boosting the healthcare indices of the nation.
Madu said Doctors of Pharmacy programme and the Consultant Pharmacist cadre are already well-known worldwide phenomena.
