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The Managing Director, Neimeth Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Ebere Ekpunobi, has called on Nigerians to at all times patronise qualified pharmacists and registered pharmaceutical organisations for medicines, as this will help stop quacks from selling fake and substandard drugs to unsuspecting Nigerians.
Stating this during the Pharmacy Week of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) recently, she said only qualified professionals can give true and effective medicines because they are being regulated and could be held responsible if anything happens to the customer as a result of the purchased medicines.
“If you consult experts and go through the qualified professionals for your medication, you stand a higher chance of ensuring that you get the true and effective products and you also have someone to hold responsible if you don’t get correct medication.
“For example, the company that I lead, we stand behind the quality of our medicines and if there’s any information gap, we take responsibility for ensuring that even the patients get all the information about our products,” adding that, “pharmacists go through many years to minimise fake medicines,” she added.
Giving a key note address, the Chief Executive Officer, Merit Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Lolu Ojo, said even in the face of economic challenges, quality of products and services must not be compromised, adding that, to be able to go through the economic downturn, especially pharmaceutical companies, must change the way they do things due to inability to access forex to bring in their products.
“Again, there are challenges with the products. It’s not enough for the pharmacist to accept these products into the warehouse, it is more important to begin to go a step further, to confirm the integrity of the product because when you hand over product to the patients, it is you he or she knows not the person who supplied you,” he added.
He advocated for the practice of polypharmacy as this will save patients a lot of money rather than going for different prescriptions.
On his part, the Head of Pharmacy Department, LASUTH, Pharm. Chukwura Henry, while calling for continuous improvement in the processes and procedures of giving quality medicines to Nigerians, disclosed that It will help to critically evaluate the quality of our services with a view to identifying gaps and proffering practical solutions on the way forward.
