WHY NIGERIA MUST ENFORCE THE PHARMACY ACT, 2022 TO SAVE LIVES: ONDO PSN SPEAKS ON THE IMPERATIVE ROLE OF SUPERINTENDENT PHARMACISTS IN HEALTHCARE DELIVERY IN NIGERIA

.A POLICY APPEAL IN SUPPORT OF THE PHARMACY ACT, 2022

1. Introduction
Healthcare delivery is a team-based enterprise, not the exclusive preserve of any single profession. Safe, effective, and ethical patient care can only be achieved when all statutory health professionals function collaboratively within their defined scopes of practice.
Recent tragic incidents involving medication and anaesthetic errors, including overdose cases during surgical procedures, have once again exposed deep systemic weaknesses in Nigeria’s health institutions, particularly the absence or marginalisation of Superintendent Pharmacists in both public and private healthcare facilities.
This document appeals to the sensibility, responsibility, and foresight of governments at all levels to fully implement and enforce the provisions of the Pharmacy Act, 2022, especially as they relate to the mandatory engagement of Superintendent Pharmacists in all health institutions where medicines are procured, stored, dispensed, or administered.
2. Propofol Overdose: A Symptom of Systemic Failure
1.Propofol is a high-risk anaesthetic medicine with:
2.A narrow therapeutic margin
3.No reversal agent
Profound effects on respiration and cardiovascular function.
In cases of overdose, particularly in infants and young children, Propofol can cause:
Severe respiratory depression or apnea
Profound hypotension and cardiac collapse
Metabolic acidosis and multi-organ failure
Such medicines demand strict pharmacological oversight, precise dosing protocols, controlled storage, and institutional accountability. Where these safeguards are weak or absent, avoidable harm and fatalities occur.
The recurring nature of medication-related adverse events in Nigerian hospitals points not merely to individual error, but to a systemic governance failure, chief among them, the exclusion of pharmacists from decision-making and operational control of medicines.
3. The Superintendent Pharmacist is the Custodian of Medicines and Patient Safety
Under the Pharmacy Act, 2022, the Superintendent Pharmacist is legally recognised as the professional custodian of medicines within a healthcare institution. Their responsibilities include:
Oversight of procurement, storage, distribution, and use of medicines
Ensuring compliance with pharmacological standards and regulations
Preventing medication errors through professional checks and balances
Establishing safe-use protocols for high-risk medicines
Acting as the final professional safeguard between medicines and patients
Pharmacists are often the last point of professional contact for patients who come to hospitals primarily to receive medicines. Ignoring this reality undermines patient safety and contradicts global best practices.
4. A Distorted Narrative in Health Workforce Planning.
For decades, governments at various levels in Nigeria have been misled into believing that:
Only Physicians are essential to hospital operations
Other health professionals are optional or secondary
This misconception is reflected in:
Employment advertisements that recruit Physicians while excluding Pharmacists.
Weak enforcement of medicines regulations
is dangerous, outdated, and unsustainable.

Healthcare is analogous to the human body:
1. The brain cannot function without the heart
2.The heart cannot function without the lungs
3.No single organ can survive in isolation
Likewise, doctors, pharmacists, nurses, laboratory scientists, and other professionals are interdependent. Exalting one profession at the expense of others destabilises the entire system.

5. Legal and Moral Obligations of Government

The Pharmacy Act, 2022 is not advisory, it is law. Governments and health institutions have both:
1.A legal duty to comply with its provisions
2.A moral obligation to protect patients from preventable harm
3.Failure to engage Superintendent Pharmacists:
Violates statutory requirements
Weakens medicines governance
Exposes patients to avoidable risks
Increases institutional and governmental liability

6. Policy Recommendations

We respectfully call on governments at all levels to:
A.Mandate the appointment of Superintendent Pharmacists in all public and private health institutions where medicines are handled.
B.Enforce full compliance with the Pharmacy Act, 2022, without professional bias or selective implementation.
C. Include pharmacists in health workforce planning, budgeting, and recruitment exercises.
D.Recognise medicines management as a specialised professional function, not an administrative afterthought.
E. Promote interprofessional collaboration as the foundation of safe and effective healthcare delivery.

7. Conclusion
Medication safety is not optional.
Professional balance is not negotiable.
Patient lives are not expendable.
A healthcare system that sidelines the custodians of medicines endangers the very people it exists to serve. The full recognition and deployment of Superintendent Pharmacists, as provided for under the Pharmacy Act, 2022, is not only a statutory requirement—it is a national imperative.
We urge governments at all levels to act decisively, correct historical misconceptions, and restore balance to Nigeria’s healthcare system, for the safety of patients today and the sustainability of healthcare tomorrow.