•Sector, Not Major Contributor To Nation’s GDP –
Yakasai
By Chioma Umeha
There is growing anxiety that indigenous medicines
are fast disappearing from the shelves of pharmacies in Nigeria as scarcity of
foreign exchange lingers.
Raising the concern were pharmacists under the
aegis of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) who alerted that 70 per
cent of medicines manufactured, marketed, used, and dispensed in Nigeria are
becoming near inaccessible.
PSN identified why the pharmaceutical sector,
which is valued at over $2 billion is not a major contributor to the country’s
Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Some of the reasons identified by the pharmacists
at the PSN’s 89th Annual National Conference, held recently, in Minna, Niger
State, are rampant Substandard, Spurious, Falsely Labelled, Falsified, and
Counterfeit (SSFFC), limited numbers of qualified pharmacists to ensure that
community and clinical pharmacy are at the heart of primary and secondary
health care, implementing National Drug Distribution Guidelines (NDDG) in 2017,
and reversing the trend of poor access to medicines.
Commenting, President, PSN, Ahmed Yakasai, in his
address said: “We are facing one of the most challenging economic climates ever
witnessed, alongside increasing anxieties about disease outbreaks and rising
poverty. As an industry, we have a risk exposure of approximately 70 per cent
of medicines that we manufacture, market, use, and dispense, mostly becoming
near inaccessible due to an unprecedented highly priced US Dollar. These are
dynamics that must be reversed if our industry is to stay afloat and we are to
stay true to the fundamental vision and ethos of ensuring access to medicine by
our growing population.
“We must also recognise that despite our estimated
operational value of over $2 billion, our industry is yet to be a notable
contribution to our nation’s GDP. The complexities of our demography –
substantial ageing alongside a youthful population within an estimated over 180
million people with complex disease profiles – are indications of the need for
us to revisit our practice model and industry positioning. All these are
situated in a non-sophisticated health economy and systems. Our pharmacy
profession and industry appear to be catching the flu just with a few sneezes
by our social and economic environments. We sure need some remedy and fast.”
He challenged members to be fully involved in
solving the lingering national health problems currently bedeviling the
country.
This is even as the PSN boss tasked its members to
embrace dynamism in exploring new opportunities in reaching out to community of
people who are now daily fed poor information on the key areas of their health.
President of PSN, also urged members to revisit
their mode of practice, given Nigeria’s huge demographic complexities.
He reiterated that such complexities in Nigeria’s
demography, coupled with so much ageing and youthful population with diverse
diseases has challenged pharmacists to revisit their mode of practice.
“Our health profile as a nation is far from being
healthy. This calls on us pharmacists to be part of the solution. It is high
time we responded with speed and positive gait.
“This will require us to be open to the dynamics
of new communities that are rapidly shaped by unfettered new (social) media
that now inform and instruct our social constructs and wellbeing. The key
question for us to reflect on is ‘where thou pharmacy’ in all these? Yakasai
said.
The PSN boss restated that the complexities of the
country’s demography – substantial ageing alongside a youthful population
within an estimated over 180 million people with complex disease profiles – are
indications of the need for pharmacists to revisit their practice model and
industry positioning.
Speaking further, the experienced pharmacist
revealed that in view of the challenges, there is so much demand on the
pharmacists from both the patients and the society at large, saying it is high
time pharmacists would be fully involved in solving national questions,
especially as they bother on health.
He averred that for PSN members to fully be
involved in in this regard, they must remain true to their values and
professionalism, challenging them to always put up behaviours that will stand
them out.
“In the midst of all these, our immediate
constituency – the patients and citizens who must always come first – are
expecting us to remain noble and true to our professional cause.
“Our population wants us to reinforce quality over
profit. Our society continues to nudge us to champion “drug security”. Our
nation challenges us to continue to focus on improving health outcomes.
“As professionals, I opine that we can contribute
to the current national questions and what will wade us through this
dilemma-ridden times is to remain true to our values.
“Values are what will sustain and ensure our
relevance at such a time as this. By values, I am not referring to the cheesy
phrases that we sometimes paste on our offices wall that fill up the space and
still look vacuous and empty.
He charged pharmacists on values that will enhance
their professionalism, while explaining the values in the context of their
jobs.
“Values, in this context, for us as pharmacists,
must be behaviours that are devoid of abstracts, but pregnant with qualities of
action that enable us to freely choose to do what is right. It is that which
guide rather than constrain our everyday professional actions and choices.
“These values will be our refreshed and renewed
sets of pointers, road maps and signposts that will assist our profession to
make decisions that match the way we should practice going forward, one that
says that we must be in touch with the things that matter to us, things that
matter to our patients and indeed things that matter to our country Nigeria.”
Speaking further Yakasai observed that pharmacists
must also embrace digitalisation and maximize same for their services which are
essential in the medical value chain, urging the practitioners to carve a niche
for themselves as other professionals did to their fields.
“We now co-exist and practice pharmacy in a
society where digitisation is changing behaviours, business models, consumer
expectations and everything – in real terms.
“This digital disruption is existentially powerful
and it is having major impact across all professional sectors.
“Our choice therefore is either to embrace it and
maximize it for pharmaceutical practice and business or we can remain scared by
it.
The PSN boss urged them to emulate “what Napster
did for music, what Uber did for Taxi services and what Amazon did to
retailers.”
He pointed a way forward for the practice of
pharmacy in already complex world, urging pharmacists to be tolerant,
clear-headed and adopt an approach that will enhance their relationship with
others.
“To be relevant in this new world, pharmacy
practice need to be tolerant of ambiguity, remain clear-headed and relationship
oriented, by being collaborative and innovative, as environmental complexities
drive us to do the opposite.”
Yakasai urges for a new pharmacy philosophy,
which, he said, would capture a new approach to dealing with myriad of
challenges confronting the profession.
According to him, there should be a new philosophy
to be called ‘pharmacentricism’, which he argued, will define what pharmacists
stand for in the face global health challenges and the attendant complexities.
“To prepare us for this new and emerging world
therefore, I will argue that we need a new approach and a new professional
philosophy.
This I will describe as ‘Pharmacentricism.”
‘Pharmacentricism’ captures a new ideology of
pharmaceutical practice and it is defined by a new approach to how we view and
explicate what we stand for as pharmacists and what we project as professionals.
“Pharmacentricism will require that we have to
start to navigate our social, economic and professional worlds in different and
new ways, guided by our professional lens and knowledge, with citizens and
patients as our core focus and at the center of all we do.”
