On medical matters, please avoid quacks

Who offers you treatment when you are sick? Is it the ‘local chemist’ or the ‘efficient nurse’ in our neighbourhood?

Is your ‘doctor’ the traditional healer who gives you the numerous and nameless concoctions whenever you feel you have malaria?

It is no longer news that many Nigerians are receiving treatment from unqualified persons who have no training or knowledge in medicine.

If such illiterate persons are the ones you consult whenever you are sick, experts say is the time to stop as their ‘intervention” will only worsen your condition.

Consultant Family Physician and Medical Director, Wellbeing Hospitals, Ajah, Lagos, Dr. Segun Aderibigbe, says that many people have developed chronic health conditions after they patronised such unskilled persons.

He blames the activities of these illegal drug operators for the increasing cases of drug resistant malaria and typhoid fever in the country.

According to him, many of them often dispense wrong drugs to their patients, thus worsening their health conditions.

Aderibigbe adds, “When you go to quacks to seek solution to your health challenge, They are not thinking about your well being. They are more interested in how much they can quickly make off your situation.

“They have a way of insisting that whoever visits them has one illness or another and the next thing they do is to offer drugs to such a patient. Many of them give wrong medication. A patient once died of a drug overdose that was given to him to treat high blood pressure by these quacks.”

Studies have shown that there are more illegal drug store operators than the legal ones in Nigeria.

Mr. Ifeanyi Okechukwu, a pharmacist, says that though drugs from these questionable sources come cheap, their effects on an individual’s health may last forever.

He says, “There is this saying in pharmacy, the bitterness of low quality drugs stays after the sweetness of the low price has gone. Buying and taking drugs from unauthorised persons or illegal chemists are just like buying food and eating the food while you are blindfolded. You can be poisoned.”

Okechukwu notes that many of these drug stores are usually operated by quacks who have no knowledge of how best to guide you on the usage of any medication.

He states, “It is only in a registered pharmacy that you can be guaranteed that you will be attended to by a pharmacist who can give you drug information and advice. Drugs interact negatively or positively. A pharmacist can tell you what to do with a drug and which food to avoid while on drugs. You will not get that information from a “local chemist” who does not understand the nuances of drug composition.”

Okechukwu explains further that drugs sold by these “local chemists” are often from manufacturers of fake and sub standard drugs who sell at very cheap prices.

He adds, “Anybody who patronises an illegal trade cannot be assured of safety or quality. Manufacturers of fake and substandard medicines often go through these channels to sell such drugs. They know their business or intentions won’t be questioned. Moreover, you are not just harming yourself; you are also aiding and abetting illegality.’

Another pharmacist, Mr. Yinka Aminu, links the increasing incidence of chronic illnesses such as liver and kidney problems in the country to the activities of quacks who deal in sale of substandard drugs..

Aminu says, “Many operators of these illegal drug outlets prescribe drugs that you do not even need just because they want to sell the stock off and make profit. They give you antibiotics and potent drugs that they do not know their chemical composition.

“Medicines are supposed to solve problems, not to create problems for patients. Today, we are talking about the spread of chronic illnesses like kidney and liver problems, many of these problems can be traceable to the uncontrolled proliferation of medicine stores. When medicines are available everywhere, people tend to abuse them.”

He notes that even when the drugs are not fake ones, they may not be safe because these outlets do not store them under the appropriate conditions.

So how do you know registered pharmaceutical shops? It is simple, Aminu says. According to him, they have an Rx emblem, a mark of authenticity used by members of the pharmaceutical association in the country.

He adds, “There is an emblem that is used to identify registered pharmacies from illegal ones. Please look out for this sign when you want to buy any drug. That is the only way you can protect yourself for now.”