Quackery: Stakeholders seek review of veterinary laws

Stakeholders in the veterinary profession have called on the Federal Government to review legislation of veterinary practice to ensure effective animal healthcare delivery in the country.
The stakeholders, who made the call at the on-going Annual Leaders’ Summit of the Nigerian Veterinary Medical Association (NVMA) on Thursday in Abuja, also urged the federal government to curtail rate of quackery.
The summit is themed: “The future of the Veterinary Practice in Nigeria”.
The stakeholders included the Nigeria Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS), NVMA, Veterinary Council of Nigeria (VCN) and Common Wealth Veterinary Medical Association.
The Director General of NAQS, Dr Vincent Isegbe, Chairman of the summit, who said that the profession was under serious attacks from quacks, suggested that some of its laws needed to be fine tune.
He added that fine tuning the laws was necessary in view of the current realities of veterinary profession.
Isegbe further encouraged veterinary professionals to look inward and acquire added value to meet up with current trend of veterinary practices.
“I encourage us to look inward and begin to add values to ourselves.
“The profession is under serious attacks from quacks, some of the legislation needs to be fine tuned in view of the current realities of veterinary profession.
“So that the younger ones coming will find it comfortable to continue with the profession,” he noted.
Dr Ibrahim Shehu, the Acting President of NVMA, who identified quackery as the major challenge in the country’s veterinary practice, described menace as posing great dangers in delivering quality animal healthcare services in the country.
Shehu specifically identified them as contributing to insurgence of antimicrobial resistance in the country thereby endangering the life of human.
According to him, they give wrong prescription of drugs thereby contributing to the current rate of antimicrobial resistance in the country.
“A licensed veterinarian knows all the rules of prescription of antibiotics when is healthy for an animal to consume such drugs, which quacks are ignorant of, they do things unprofessionally.’’
He, however, attributed the rate of quacks in the profession to lack of amendment of veterinary laws to meet current realities in the practice.
Shehu listed some of the laws currently at the National Assembly that needed to be upgraded as the Veterinary Surgeons Act and Veterinary Hospitals, among others.
“We have veterinary laws which some of them are outdated but we have been pushing in NASS to get the new laws updated with the current realities in the veterinary practice.
“We have the veterinary surgeons Act that has been in the Senate for concurrence, the veterinary hospitals and other different veterinary laws in NASS that needed to be amended to represent current realities in the practice.
“If those laws are passed by the government it will further equip us as veterinarians to deliver quality veterinary care that we are all equip to deliver,” he said.
On the theme, he said it was “selected to educate them on the jobs they can get, where to get those jobs, where they can fit in different cadres of jobs in the country”. (NAN)