The President, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Ahmed Yakasai, has called on Nigerians to make use of and maximise the expertise of the pharmacists in their communities.

 

He said apart from the fact that pharmacists are able to provide informed advice to patients with minor illnesses and often to those with more chronic conditions and are on established maintenance therapy, their speciality also emphasises their role in health care delivery.

 

In his speech at this year’s World Pharmacy Day, themed, ‘Caring for you’, the PSN boss said, “I want to enjoin consumers of health to continue if they have and if not begin to maximally utilize the peculiar expertise of their pharmacists at community, hospital, industrial or academic levels.

 

“Your pharmacist is an invaluable source of information on all medicines. It is your right to top this huge reserve and potential. Pharmacists’ specialised knowledge of the management and properties of medicines in an increasingly sophisticated health care environment brings them closer to prescribing doctors as a source of independent information about therapeutic options and about the consequences – both positive and negative – of treatment.

 

“It also brings them closer to patients in the community as readily accessible dispensers not only of medicines but also of health-related information.”

He also advised that pharmacists should be given their deserved attention and recognition in the society.

 

He said, “In less affluent settings, inadequacies in the provision of primary health care are attributable to shortcomings within the drug distribution chain. Only when the pharmacist has been accepted as a vital member of the health care team can the necessary supporting services be organised with the professionalism that they demand.”