In Lagos, the drug market is the area that is so amorphous that orthodox pharmaceutical products are hawked on the streets of the city. Little wonder, that the non-standard so-called traditional medicines business, better described as one-drug-for-all ailments market, is an all-comers affair. The dangerous implication of all this is that the health of about 20 million residents of Lagos, which is said to constitute about 60 percent of Nigeria’s economy, is being threatened.
In the area of conventional medicine the competition is between “chemist shop owners” and qualified pharmacists. Speaking on how she ventured into the business, a chemist shop owner at Ijede, said that she did not see anything wrong in running such a business. According to her, she dealt in only off-the-counter products. She said she underwent a training organised by a particular business outfit before she started off. The woman, observably a school certificate holder, revealed that she started the business with about N150,000 and had no regret venturing into it.
She confessed that most chemist shop owners dealt in certain products that the law did not permit them to deal in, saying that demands for them warranted it. According to her, chemist shops’ owners belong to associations which protect their interest against law enforcement agents. This encourages those who have the wherewithal to venture into the business. She added that it would be difficult for any government to actually keep them out of the business.
Another medicine shop owner at Isawo, Ikorodu area, asked Inside Lagos if pharmacists could fill the vacuum that would be created if they left the scene for them. “The issue is that we are the first port of call for many people. As long as we don’t give them fake, substandard or expired drugs, it is fine. Tell me, how many registered pharmacies do you have in rural areas in this country? In many places, they are not there. And I can tell you, our efforts have saved many lives,” he said.
However, according to a pharmacist who practises at Oju Elegba, things are not being done properly in Nigeria.
"We have said it times without number, that only qualified pharmacists are allowed by law to interact directly with patients when it comes to dispensing drugs. The so-called chemist shop owners are quacks and so should not be involved in drug dispensing. The government is not doing enough in this matter. We have a Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) that is not living up to expectation to ensure that those who are not trained and qualified for the jobs are kept out of it.
“We are not saying that people who are not pharmacists should not come into the market per se. They could be wholesalers and importers. They are allowed under the law to do that but they have no business having direct interaction with patients. Dispensing drugs to patients is not their job according to the law of this land: it belongs to trained and qualified pharmacists. Blame ministry of health at state and federal levels for whatever anomaly you observe,” he said. According to him, the relevant law enforcement departments in Lagos State and Federal Ministries of Health which also have qualified pharmacists among their staff are “sleeping on duty” and need to wake up.
He also said that the PCN, an agency established by the federal government in 1992, to regulate and control the practice of pharmacy in all its aspects and ramifications needs to do its job.
“Let me say the responsibility lies on the head of the people that are patronising them in the first place. When you have a headache, you know where to go. When you want to buy drugs you know where you should go.
The kind of drug-related information and advice you get from a qualified pharmacist, you cannot get from a chemist shop man or woman. A ‘chemist’ can never do the job of a pharmacist,” said a pharmacist who practices at Yaba. “So, there should be a higher level of awareness so people do not continue to go to the wrong place,” he added.
He said chemist shops’ owners are normally regarded as patent medical sellers. “Outside Nigeria, it is not so but you know the situation of this country: it is anything goes and nobody cares about it. Even medical doctors are not allowed to do the job of a pharmacist, they can only prescribe. But here, you see a whole lot of things happening that are appalling and when you want to pick it up, someone will say, you can’t, you can’t. What the patent medical sellers do is sell over the counter drugs like multi-vitamins, blood tonic, paracetamol, etc. They are not allowed to carry or handle antibiotics, for instance. There are other kinds of drugs that should not be seen with them but you see them selling all they can lay their hands on. That is why a lot of people have misused antibiotics like ampiclox and amoxil, for instance,” he concluded.
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