The Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) has said that professional rivalry and clan culture approach have remain the bane of the country’s health sector, saying that the development is endangering the life of patients. The Registrar of PCN, Pharm. Nurudeen Mohammed, stated this yesterday during the council executives’ courtesy visit to the LEADERSHIP corporate headquarters in Abuja. He said, “By the time we all agree that the patient is the reason we are gathered together, then our health indices will improve. The clan culture means ‘me and my household’. The medical doctor is trying to catch what will favour him, the pharmacists are doing this and the nurses are doing this and the whole system is in shambles.He said, “There are laws already on ground prescribing the roles and responsibilities of each professional and I believe if each professional should understand where his duties end, he will know where the other begins. We are trying to review our laws, but you find out that in Nigeria, the major problem is enforcement of the law. It’s not as if they don’t know. That is the major problem we have in the healthcare industry”. He however said that it is traditional that the doctors come first in healthcare service delivery because in the hierarchy of medicine, the doctors are in the fore- front. He said, “When you look at the chronological development of medicine, the spiritual leader has always been the head. But the health sector is like a polygamous family of which the first wife who has a son is the doctor. But the father of the house has refused to understand that in a polygamous home, you cannot isolate the first wife and give her the best. You will end up breeding hooliganism.”
Source:Leadership Online
