As Nigeria joins the rest of the world in celebrating the 2016 World Pharmacists Day, which is usually marked on every September 25, the Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN), Lagos State Chapter, has called on all stakeholders in the healthcare sector to begin to work towards practice models, that will ensure and guaranty access to primary healthcare through the window of pharmacy.
Speaking at an event organised to mark this year ‘World Pharmacy Day’ which was held at Eti-Osa East LCDA, Ajah, Lagos recently, the Chairman, ACPN, Lagos chapter, Pharm. (Mrs) Abiola Paul-Ozieh, explained that emerging new inter-professional collaborative models of primary healthcare delivery, have changed the way pharmacists are caring for patients and working with other healthcare professionals in developed countries, adding that such practice models that will integrate Pharmacists into primary care teams will become inevitable if Nigeria will fulfill her goal of universal health coverage.
The programme also offered free counseling and screening “on HIV, blood sugar, blood pressure, breast cancer, cervical cancer, prostrate cancer, dental check and tuberculosis to the people of Eti-Osa, Ajah community and its environs.
“World Pharmacists Day was the brainchild of the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), with the FIP council voting to establish the event in the late 2000s during a conference they staged in Istanbul, Turkey. The aim of the day is to bring attention to pharmacies and the positive benefits they offer when it comes to health, and FIP encourages all its members to get involved to make the event a success.”
