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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Dearth of qualified pharmacists putting lives at risk

By M. Waqar Bhatti
February 22, 2018

Thousands of people die every year across the country due to medication errors since majority of the positions of pharmacists in government departments, the pharmaceutical industry, the health care sector and pharmacies are filled by medical doctors or untrained or illiterate persons, the Pakistan Pharmacists Association (PPA) said on Wednesday.

The PPA said that after studying pharmacy for several years and acquiring specialised degrees in the field of medicine, qualified pharmacists leave Pakistan to work in the US and European and Middle Eastern countries because they are not being provided enough importance at home.

Pakistani pharmacists study all aspects of medicine for at least five years and then even acquire a master’s degree and a doctorate in the field of pharmacy, the PPA’s president Tanvir Chaudhry, vice-president Adnan Rizvi and general secretary Aziz Nagra told a news conference at the Karachi Press Club.

But the pharmacists are not given jobs and due preference as compared to medical doctors, and on the other hand, they are being welcomed by other countries and their services are being used to improve their respective health care sectors, added the PPA office-bearers.

Accompanied by other office-bearers, the leading pharmacists of the country condemned alleged discrimination at the hands of federal and provincial governments, the pharmaceutical industry and health care institutions of the country.

They claimed that even the jobs meant for trained and qualified pharmacists had been filled by medical doctors or, in most of the cases, untrained or illiterate persons.

They said that due to ignorance of the properties of modern medicines and their adverse reactions, complications and interactions with other drugs, hundreds of people are dying in Pakistan since doctors and medical practitioners do not consult trained and qualified pharmacists before prescribing medicines to their patients.

“Medication errors are resulting in hundreds or perhaps thousands of deaths in Pakistan,” claimed PPA President Tanvir Chaudhry. “Every other day relatives of patients raise hue and cry at hospitals claiming that wrong medication or injection caused death of their loved one, which happens mainly because pharmacists are not consulted by medical practitioners.”

He demanded of the federal and provincial governments to accord due importance to pharmacists of the country, provide them with facilities equal to the grade-17 officials, hire them at public and private health care institutions and seek their services in saving people’s lives.

Adnan Rizvi, provincial drug inspector and the PPA’s vice-president, claimed that there are only three drug inspectors in Karachi as compared to 18 in Lahore, which shows how much importance is given to the lives of people in Sindh. “There is no supervision of thousands of medical stores and pharmacies across Sindh where untrained and illiterate workers are giving over-the-counter and prescription medicines to patients.”

He said there is an urgent need to hire trained pharmacists as drug inspectors as well as binding all the pharmacies to acquire the services of trained and qualified pharmacists.

The PPA office-bearers also demanded of the provincial government to include pharmacists in the medicine purchase committees since they are better aware of medicines and their compositions, to hire a pharmacist for every 50 beds at public and private hospitals to reduce medicinal errors, and to provide health professional allowance to pharmacists on the pattern of medical doctors.

They warned that if their demands are not met by the authorities, they would be left with no other option but to take to the streets since pharmacists are not only being deprived of their livelihood but patients are also suffering due to the absence of pharmacists’ services at hospitals.