Oshiomhole tasks Pharmacists on high Ethical Standard  

Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State has asked pharmacists in the country to imbibe high ethical standard in the interest of the masses.

Speaking yesterday while declaring open the 2013 Pharmacy week of the Edo State Chapter of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria in Benin City, Oshiomhole said Pharmacists must imbibe the best practices obtained in other parts of the world.

The Governor who criticized the way some Pharmaceutical companies advertise their products as cure-all said “in my view, some of the adverts here will not pass the scrutiny elsewhere as it may easily pass for open drugs market. All of us do need to interrogate some of the things we have taken for granted. If it is wrong elsewhere, it shouldn’t be right in Nigeria.”

The governor said there are appropriate laws to regulate the medical health industry but that the problem is the lack of implementation of these laws.

The Governor who assured that the Central Hospital in Benin City will be completed within the next twelve months said “we had an accident and we had to find out what went wrong. The good news is that we now have established what went wrong.  There were structural defects and we thank  God it occurred at the time it occurred. Because imagine if we had completed the building and we started equipping it and it has been commissioned and we have patients in it. And it collapsed it would have been terrible.

“We are clear on what went wrong. The structural engineers have checked what went wrong and much more importantly they now know how to overcome those defects. And we have reviewed the contract and the design revisited and in the next few weeks you will see them working. When that is completed,  within now and the next twelve months, we will equip it with the state of the art equipment” he stated.

Earlier, the Chairman of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, Edo State Chapter, Dr. Solomon Ikpefan said the society associates itself with the infrastructural development in the state and the giant strides of the governor.

He expressed the willingness of the body to collaborate with the government in achieving its laudable health programmes.

A keynote address was delivered by Pharmacist (Mrs) Felicia Oriafo-Odaro on “Medicines and Society” and she argued that over 70 percent ailments that affect human beings need medicines, saying about 2bn people worldwide lack access to medicines..

She said medicines are important to man but harmful when abused adding that malaria remains one of the highest rate of infant mortality in the world.