-Receives NAPPSA Distinguished Service Award
The President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) Pharm. Ahmed I Yakasai, has listed some of the factors responsible for disharmony and rivalry in the Nigerian healthcare sector to include: Establishment of the office of Chief Medical Adviser “Surgeon General” to the president; Creation of a national healthcare commission; Matters arising from Teaching Hospital Act; Opposition to appointment of other health professionals as directors in Federal Health Institutions; Establishment of Postgraduate colleges for other health professionals, and the obvious bias against health professionals other than doctors especially in the reflected areas.
Pharm. Yakasai, who presented a paper at the just concluded Annual Scientific Conference and Exposition of the Nigerian Association of Pharmacists and Pharmaceutical Scientists in the Americas (NAPPSA) titled: “Synergy among Healthcare Practitioners: Advocacy to Respective Agencies for Collaborative Practice in Nigeria”, emphasised the place of synergy in a successful healthcare delivery system.
According to him: “Synergy among healthcare practitioners is a must and not an option in achieving optimum safe quality care for the patients. When healthcare practitioners with different complimentary skills cooperate, come together and work hand in hand in the interest of the patients they always achieve better results for the patients.
“The outcomes achieved due to synergy among the healthcare practitioners is far better than when each healthcare practitioner works in isolation. That is synergy. Even drugs work better when they work synergistically which one drug increases the other’s effectiveness. For example; Effect on the same cellular system by two different antibiotics like a penicillins damage the cell wall of gram positive bacteria and improve the penetrations of aminoglycosides”.
Comparing recent development in the healthcare industry to what obtains in the past, he said there is an obvious change in healthcare delivery nowadays due to influx of knowledge on the parts of patients and practitioners, which keeps the scope of healthcare expanding by the day.
“ In the past, as it relates to the care process, healthcare practitioners were primarily nurses, pharmacists and doctors. Now the term healthcare practitioner encompasses a wide range of other people including other professionals. Not only has the number of medical subspecialties significantly increased over the last century (from 14 in 1927 to 103 in 2000), but the number of non-medical care practitioners has also increased. Patients too have to a certain extent become ‘practitioners’ in their own healthcare.
“Moreover, not only do current practitioners role need to be specified relative to the new care processes and operating systems, but entirely new roles (perhaps system architecture for example) need to be developed and reimbursed”, he stated.
The PSN President, however did not fail to mention the merits of synergy in the healthcare sector. Some of the benefits of collaboration among healthcare practitioners he mentioned are: promotion of patient-centred care, enhancement of better communication, comprehensive patient care, better coordination of patient treatment plans, and it empowers team members.
In a related development, in recognition of his advocacy and tenacity for Pharmacy Practice in Nigeria, Pharm. Yakasai received the NAPPSA Distinguished Service Award, on Saturday, 22 September 2018, at Embassy Suites-Concord Hotel, Concord, North Carolina, USA
 Pharm. Ahmed I Yakasai, has listed some of the factors responsible for disharmony and rivalry in the Nigerian healthcare sector to include: Establishment of the office of Chief Medical Adviser “Surgeon General” to the president; Creation of a nat){kind=link}