The Ogun State government has warned operators of patent medicine stores on selling contraceptive pills to adolescents, vowing that any store caught selling such pills to female minors will not only be shut down, the owner will be arrested and prosecuted.
The Executive Secretary, Primary Health Care Development Board, Dr Elijah Ogunsola, gave the warning on Monday at a stakeholders’ meeting of reproductive health workers in Abeokuta, the state capital.
The meeting, organised in collaboration with the Youth Future Savers Initiative (YFSI) and The Challenge Initiative (TCI), was aimed at reviewing the activities of reproductive health workers in the state.
Ogunsola, who was represented by the Reproductive Health Coordinator of the Abeokuta South Local Government, Mrs Taiwo Enilolobo, noted that the activities of unlicensed patent medicines stores had contributed to the high rate of maternal mortality in the state.
Ogunsola urged parents and adolescents to embrace the Life Planning for Adolescents and Youths (LPAY) strategy to prevent unsafe abortions and stop children from patronising patent medicine stores to procure abortion or family planning pills.
His words, “Some of these patent medicine stores operators are so careless and heartless to be selling drugs and pills to adolescents to use without supervision.
“We have been engaging them (patent medicine stores operators) and enlightening them on the dangers of selling drugs and pills to adolescents. They should refer adolescents to hospitals to take up the right family planning methods.”
But responding to Ogunsola’s allegations, the Abeokuta Divisional President of the Nigeria Association of Proprietary Medicine Dealers,
Mr Kunle Sofela, said the association’s members were licensed to sell emergency family planning drugs like condoms.
Sofela maintained that his members were not permitted to attend to pregnant women but should rather refer them to a health centre or hospital.
