Governing Council for pharmacists inaugurated

Story Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho
THE Deputy Minister for Health, Mr Robert Joseph Mettle-Nunoo, has inaugurated a nine-member Governing Council for the Ghana College of Pharmacists, with a call for better regulation of the activities of pharmacists in the country.
The inauguration of the council is in fulfilment of the Specialist Health Training and Plant Medicine Research Act, 2011 (Act 833), which aims at promoting specialist training in pharmacy and related disciplines.
The council is chaired by Mr Kwabena Akurang Ohene Manu, an entrepreneur, with Prof Emeritus Kwame Sarpong, the President of Foundation Fellows; Prof. Theophilus C. Fleischer, the Dean of Faculty of Pharmacy of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi; Prof Anna Lartery, a food scientist; Frederica Salla Illiasu of the Attorney-General’s Department, and Mrs Martha Gyansa Lutterodt, the Director of Pharmaceutical Services at the Ministry of Health, as members.
The rest are Mr Joseph Kodjo Nsiah Nyoagbe, the Registrar of the Pharmacy Council; Mr James Ohemeng Kyei of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana and Dr. Yaw Adu Gyamfi, an industrialist.
Mr Mettle-Nunoo called on the council to work closely with the Food and Drugs Board (FDB) to stop the importation of fake and imitation drugs into the country.
He called on the members to also ensure that they helped in ensuring that pharmacists were posted to serve in the urban communities across the country.
He advised the council members to work at ensuring that the college produced only the best whose responsibility would be to improve health outcomes.
The deputy minister called on people to be more circumspect about the drugs they bought and where they bought them, saying that buying cheap drugs would mean buying fake or imitated drugs.
The Executive Secretary of the National Council for Tertiary Education, Prof. Mahama Duwiejua, who chaired the inauguration ceremony, said the College of Pharmacists would help promote specialist training in pharmacy and related disciplines, as well as promote continuous professional development in pharmacy and contribute to the formulation of policies on sound health, medicine and public health in general.
He gave an assurance that the council would ensure the responsible use of medicines to assure the sustainability of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).
He called for support for the council from members and the public, saying that the council could achieve a lot with the needed support.