THE MUSING OF A PHARMACIST I
As a community pharmacist, I see a lot of 'error free' prescriptions and 'not so good' prescriptions. If all things are equal, medicines are grouped into prescription only medicines POMs and over the counter medicines OTC in Nigeria. In simple term, POMS are to be sold with a physicians prescription and OTC can be bought by a patient without seeing a doctor. Unfortunately that isn't the norm here (not good). People work into a pharmacy or perhaps a chemist and buy POMs with no restrictions. Oh well, try and stop them or even refuse to dispense to them, then get ready to be out of business in 2 or 3 months. As for me, I have set my own rules, I don't ever dispense Opioids and sedatives without a physicians prescription no matter the pressure. If you are not happy with it, it's your choice. On such occasions, I try to explain to the patients the implications of taking these medicines because you like them or without a physician telling you to take them,