Delta Government on Monday, gave approval for the employment of 40 pharmacists to bridge the manpower deficiency of pharmaceutical personnel in government hospitals across the state.
Governor Ifeanyi Okowa gave the approval while playing host to the leadership and members of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Delta State Chapter, who paid him a courtesy visit at Government House, Asaba.
The governor expressed worry that out of 64 government hospitals in the state, 39 had no pharmacists, stressing that such was not a healthy development to the health care policies and programmes of his administration.
According to him, no hospital could perform optimally without the professional input of a pharmacist.
He explained that despite the present global economic challenges, his administration would ensure that government hospitals in the state are fairly staffed to meet the health care needs of the people.
Governor Okowa pledged to look into all the issues presented to him with a view to addressing some of them for the overall good of residents of the state.
On the alleged issue of harassment by some government agencies, he urged members of the society to take up the issue with the relevant agencies if they noticed that what they (such agencies) were doing was not in line with the position of the law.
While saying that many Nigerians don’t pay tax, Governor Okowa harped on the need for Nigerians to always pay their taxes to enable government to continue to perform its obligations to the people.
“If we have 40 pharmacists with 64 hospitals, we know that obviously is not right. I don’t see why we would allow the situation to degrade to that very level because I, also know that recently, I gave approval for the Hospitals Management Board (HMB) to employ doctors and nurses and I don’t think that reasonable provision was made to employ pharmacists.
“Because for us to have 39 of our hospitals without even a single pharmacists, obviously is not right and it ought not to be so,” he said.
