Pharmacists under the aegis of the Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN) have described as lacking facts and substances, the reaction of the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) to its petition to the President Bola Tinubu on the dominance of the physicians over non-physician professionals in Nigeria’s health and education sectors.

ACPN had in a letter signed by its National Chairman, Pharm. Ambrose Igwekamma Ezeh, appealed to President Tinubu to put an end to what it termed “blackmail tactics” of the physician dominated associations, including the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Medical and Dental Association of Nigeria (MDCAN), and the National Association Resident Doctors (NARD), in their efforts to institutional marginalisation of non-physicians in the sector.

Citing recent industrial strike by Physician Lecturers at the University of Calabar (UNICAL) over the selection of a Vice Chancellor for the University of Calabar (UNICAL) and a similar alleged nullification of the appointment of a Vice Chancellor at Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) by the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, because his colleague physicians under the auspices of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria (MDCAN) had protested the appointment.

ACPN, who described it as an attempt to usurp the statutory powers of the Governing Council of the Universities, argued that the actions of the MDCAN negated the National Universities Commission (NUC) stipulated requirement that only PhD holders can be appointed Vice Chancellors, a qualification many of the doctors do not have, but posses professional Fellowships.

ACPN strongly accused the Federal Ministry of Education, under Dr. Tunji Alausa, of allegedly promoting disorder and divisiveness in the sector by encouraging a culture of discrimination by insisting that only physicians are eligible to head the universities, even when they do not possess the PhD as statutory requirement for a Vice Chancellor position in a Nigerian university.

‘’The Federal Ministry of Education, is systematically promoting a flurry of Universities of Medicine, sometimes designated as Universities of Medical Sciences, which feature Faculties of other health professions, but then it collaborates with NMA and MDCAN to insist that only physicians can emerge as VCs of such Universities,’’ ACPN said in the petition.

The association condemned what it called “the weaponisation of blackmail and strike actions by the physicians to influence policies and appointments backed ‘by internal sycophantic structures’ in government.”

ACPN further stated in the petition that the systemic mismanagement in the health and education sectors has caused serious harm to the nation’s development, and may be worse if urgent steps are not taken by the President to stem the development.

In swift reaction to the ACPN’s petition to the President, the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) described it as inflammatory and misleading as the doctors harbour no animosity against the pharmacists.

According to NARD, “there is no incursion in the healthcare system by the body of doctors. What we have seen is a revolt, utterances, statements of attack to the Nigerian doctors’ positive contributions to the health needs of Nigerians. It is expected that ACPN will be more intentional in addressing how people access prescription only drugs.”

But the National Chairman of ACPN, Ezeh insists on the association’s submission in the petition to the President. He maintained that Nigeria’s health and education sector under the leadership of physicians has witnessed deficit indices.

He posited that healthcare administration is an autonomous professional calling. “That is why trained professional administrators are appointed to head hospitals like we see in other climes.

“This was the norm in Nigeria up to 1985 when late Olikoye Kuti in alliance with former military President, General Ibrahim Babangida, who was his erstwhile boss disrupted this ethical order with the infamous decree 10 of 1985, which has been manipulated to compel the headship of Federal Health Institutions(FHIs) by Physicians in Nigeria.” (THISDAY)