In view of the growing unemployment figure which impacts negatively on the nation’s security, government should establish a prominent middle class society to accommodate Patent and Proprietary Medicine Dealers to sustain their trade rather than force them into the job market to worsen present economic hardship across the country.
Barr. Chima Awurum, former Imo State President, Nigerian Association of Patent and Proprietary
Medicine Dealers (NAPPMED) made the call early this week during interaction with newsmen at the Cathedral of the Transfiguration Of Our Lordl (CATOL), Owerri. He explained that NAPPMED was a pre-colonial creation which covered every nooks and cranny of the country serving the indigenous population both in the Urban areas and the linterland up to the.remote areas where there are no community pharmacists.
At that time, he said, the Colonial administration used the Patent Medicine Dealers and caused them to function to attend to the needs of people because the pharmacists were then scarce in Society.
According to him, there was what was called Patent List which provided for the category of drugs they, by Law, should be limited to. It was also the same in other west African countries like Ghana etc where they still function till date without harassment from Pharmacists or security men like the Nigerian Police.
The fact, he said, Pharmacists are not found in all the villages in the hinterland hence should patent medicine dealers be wiped ou, how can the medicine needs of the Rural population be taken care of, he queried.
He noted that if NAPPMED members are suffocated out of business, they will add up to the numbers of the unemployed in society does it increased unemployed, insecurity. worsen even as members have no alternative jobs in the face of the very harsh economic climate ravaging the country.
” Patent Medicine Proprietors can operate” at the last segment of the drug distribution channel given their contact of reaching the final consumers at the village/hamet level of society, he said.
This is because, he stated, “you do not see the community pharmacists everywhere you go”, he stressed.
Continuing, he stressed that the right of patent medicine dealers must be protected under the Law making an indirect reference to the Pharmacy Board who is alleged wants Medicine Dealers out of business noting also the madness of some fraudulent security personnel who go about intimidating them in their business outfits to extort money from them.
The Legal Advisor of NAPPMED, Imo State stated that Patent Medicine Dealers are not covered to handle some class of drugs yet the Patent List as of today, he pointed out, need a review because its present.provision is not enough to sustain them in business.
He lamented: ” In the 1980s up to 1990s there ware classes of licenses then in force: A,B & C which I urge government ty reverse io, considering graduates in Pharmacy Technology
and the related courses, while pegging the list qualification to School Certificate holders. I do not support total eradication and annihilation of this group out of business and their continued harassment Law enforcement agencies, even when they keep to the approved List.
Continuing, he said, “Government should support them knowing the vital role they play in our rural communities especially the fact that Pharmacists usually avoid these places “
Barr. Awurum.therefore canvased the use of Pharmacy Technicians/Assistants and graduates in the Sciences who should be reprogrammed at different levels. In other words, anyone without the Senior Secondary Certificate should not be admitted into the fold , he stated. Therefore , he declared that the government should intervene.
“The population of people in the trade should not be ostracized. Some of them in this trade have trained up medical doctors, nurses having acquired experiences of between 20 to 30 years and rendering very valuable medical services to society.in the absence of Community Pharmacists”, stressing the urgent need to create a viable middle class in our present society. Barr. Awurum noted that in most developing countries there are trained artisans, carpenters, automobile technicians, plumbers, electricians etc who are sustaining their economies. “In a country where the middle class does not exist, it is a potential bed for crisis,” he concluded.
