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It Is Our Right To Be Designated Consultants, Pharmacist Insists

The President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Olumide Akintayo has condemned Nigerian doctors for threatening to go on strike because “pharmacists and other … Continue reading It Is Our Right To Be Designated Consultants, Pharmacist Insists


The President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Olumide Akintayo has condemned Nigerian doctors for threatening to go on strike because “pharmacists and other cadres of health workers are going to be designated consultants”.

He also accused doctors of being the “biggest beneficiaries of skipping in the entire public service” in the country, adding that when he graduated thirty years ago, pharmacists and doctors used to start work at “grade level 8” in the public service.

Akintayo, noted that it was late Dr. Olukoye Ransome-Kuti “who changed the status quo in his days (as health minister) with the unfortunate Medical Salary Scale (MSS) in the early 90s” insisting that “Nigerians have not witnessed industrial harmony since then because that was what triggered the clarion call for specialised salary scale by different cadres of workers”.

Insisting that pharmacists are “experts on drugs”, he wondered why the medical doctors in Nigeria would threaten to go on strike because pharmacists would be designated consultants when “it is a global norm to have pharmacists as consultants everywhere from the U.S., Australia, Canada”.

Though Mr Akintayo agrees that “the training of a medical doctor places him in a unique position to drive the clinical process in the hospital”, he was quick to add that “this is not about anybody contending space with other people”.

“It is only designed so that patient output can get better…it happens in other places.”

He berated the medical consultants of Nigeria for blackmailing the government on the condition, maintaining that they should follow due process in making their concerns known.

He called on the federal government to take a cue from the Lagos State Government and employ doctors on a ‘pay based on services rendered’ arrangement, so as to “knock sense into some skulls”.

Akintayo accused the incumbent leadership of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) of being on the “path of reducing the noble profession to a mere trade association that agitates only on the basis of the ego of its members”. He stressed that “what that means is that there is obvious compromise in moral and ethical values”.

Akintayo noted that he is a proud pharmacist because he chose to be, and would still be a pharmacist if he has to do it all over again.