PSN Challenges NMA’s Order against FG’s Appointment of Consultant Pharmacists

The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) Lagos State branch has challenged the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) Lagos chapter’s attempt to scuttle the federal government’s appointment of Consultant Pharmacists in Federal Health Institutions in the state, describing it as biting more than it could chew.

PSN Lagos Chairman, Babayemi Oyekunle, while reacting to a recent communiqué allegedly issued by the NMA Lagos chapter rejecting the appointment of Consultant Pharmacists into federal health institutions in the state and calling for a “reversal of the appointment irrespective of its legality,” including a warning that its members in the two affected federal health institutions in Lagos State would embark a warning strike; declared the action of the physicians body as a “hostile and monarchical attempts to undermine the implementation of the Consultant Pharmacist Cadre approved by the government.’’

According to him, NMA Lagos State had mandated its leadership to write to the Federal Ministry of Health on the inherent danger of the Consultant Cadre in Pharmacy while a “clear and strong warning was issued to all other Medical Directors and Chief Medical Directors contemplating the implementation of Consultant Pharmacist Cadre in their institutions” to stop.

Oyekunle described the NMA Lagos as “vintage epitome of monarchical antiquity in which many Nigerian physicians still dwell in 2025,” saying that “its uncouth statements are unduly aggressive and hostile and amount to a declaration of war.

“We wonder where the NMA Lagos derives the authority to issue “Clear and strong warnings” to Medical Directors and Chief Medical Directors who are government appointees that are bound by circulars of government in the spirit of existing Public Service Rules (PSR),’’ he queried.

He further said: “For far too long in the annals of our health system, the NMA and its appendages have perfected a culture of medical elitism which manifests as an insulting but very well entrenched institutional arrogance which responsible citizens of this country have a responsibility to join hands with the PSN and other progressive stakeholders in health to nip in the bud at this time.’’

Citing what obtains in other climes including the U.K where pharmacists have been designated Consultants in the National Health Services, USA, Canada, Australia, Poland , South Africa, Ghana and Sierra Leone where Consultant Cadre has been the norm in the health system for decades without a disruption to the communality of the focus of health professionals which is patient care, the PSN declared as inconceivable “that NMA believes that only physicians should specialise and be rewarded while skills acquisition must remain a taboo to other health professionals contrary to international best practices.’’