The Ekiti State Governor Dr. Kayode Fayemi has supervised the destruction of expired drugs worth about N15 million withdrawn from all public health facilities across the state.
Fayemi said the destruction became necessary to rid the state of toxic and dangerous substances and to enable his administration commence the transformation of the health sector on a desired, guaranteed quality health care services and delivery.
He noted that getting rid of expired drugs could be achieved by simply discarding the drugs at any dump site and burning them became necessary to ensure that people of doubtful characters do not lay their hands on them to inject them back to the society.
The governor added that water-tight secutity and control measure had been put in place to forestall unpatriotic act.
Fayemi identified the features of expired drugs to include decrease in effectiveness over time, discolouration or loss of aesthetic value due to reaction as a result of long time storage and conversion to poisonous substances as a result of chain breakage and cleavage.
The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health and Human Services, Dr. Ayotunde Omole, who represented Governor Fayemi at the exercise, noted that taking expired drugs could cause organ damage, restlessness, and other emergencies.
Omole added that inherent dangers in taking expired drugs informed the decision of Ekiti state government to mandate all government primary, secondary and tertiary health facilities to be combed for such products for prompt destruction.
In her welcome address, the General Manager, Central Medical Stores, Mrs Olabisi Arogundade revealed that destruction of expired drugs was last carried out in the state in 2008.
The General Manager put the cost of the expired drugs destroyed at about 15 million Naira.
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