Dr Mohammad Didare Alam Muhsin :
Today is 25 September — the World Pharmacists Day. The day marks the anniversary of the inception of International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) in 1912 and was adopted by the FIP Council, made up of pharmacy leaders from throughout the world, at their congress in Istanbul, Turkey in 2009.
Each year FIP announces a theme for the celebration of the day. In this context, the theme announced by the FIP for this year is: “Pharmacists: Meeting global health needs”.
Pharmacy education in Bangladesh began with the opening of the Department of Pharmacy in Dhaka University (DU) in 1964. More than two decades later, the second Department of Pharmacy was opened in Jahangirnagar University (JU). This event worked like threshold for the booming pharmacy education in the country.
Because, after JU many public and private universities in the country opened pharmacy departments within a very short period of time. According to the information provided on the Bangladesh Pharmacy Council website, currently 13 public and 30 private universities are offering 4 to 5 years pharmacy education at the undergraduate level to produce pharmacy graduates (‘A’ grade pharmacists).
Besides, 17 public and 41 private institutes are offering 4-year diploma degrees to produce ‘B’ grade pharmacists. Additionally, the Bangladesh Pharmacy Council and the Bangladesh Chemists and Druggists Association jointly conduct a quarterly Pharmacy Certificate Registration Course for those interested in the pharmacy business. According to a source, this course is currently being conducted in 75 centres of Chemist Association in 55 districts of the country.
If the trainees pass the Pharmacy Certificate Registration Examination held under the Bangladesh Pharmacy Council after completing the course, the Pharmacy Council grants them registration as Pharmacy Technicians in the ‘C’ category.
Pharmacy is a multi-disciplinary profession. Pharmacists are making an invaluable contribution to global health care in many different ways. To be brief, the objective of pharmacy curriculum is to create skilled and expert manpower for dealing with various aspects of medicine. To this end, universities globally offer a 4-year bachelor’s or a 5-year Pharm.D. (Doctor of Pharmacy) course.
During this long trajectory, in addition to giving a pharmacy student extensive training on drug action, use, adverse effects and interactions, they are made efficient to deal with all aspects of medicine including extraction/synthesis of the main and auxiliary ingredients, preparation of various products like tablets, capsules, etc., quality control, storage, distribution & marketing, and monitoring of patient’s condition while using medicines.
Professionally, the scope of pharmacists can be divided into 3 main areas: 1. Community/Retail Pharmacy (traditionally known as pharmacist/ chemist shops), 2. Hospitals and 3. Pharmaceutical industry. Globally, roughly 80-85 percent of graduate pharmacists provide their professional services in community and hospital pharmacy, where they act as a bridge between physicians and patients.
In addition to providing expert services to both physicians and patients on medicines, they play an important role in ensuring proper use of medicines and preventing misuse. Unfortunately, in spite of the large number of graduate pharmacists currently being produced in the country to carry out this job, the involvement of graduate pharmacists in this area is still nearly zero due to lack of sufficient attention from policy makers and undue interference from some quarters.
Currently some graduate pharmacists in the country are running a small number of self-initiated model pharmacies, while some private hospitals have also started some retail/community pharmacies under the supervision of graduate pharmacists. But, if you allow the pharmacies to be managed by ‘C’ grade pharmacy technicians and don’t enact rules to encourage/ force drug dealers to hire graduate pharmacists, there is little hope of any significant change in this regard.
So far, some Diploma Pharmacists have been appointed to look after the medicines in Government Hospitals. However, some renowned private hospitals such as United, Square, Evercare and Labaid have taken a leading role to show the path for the institutionalization of the role of pharmacists in healthcare by employing graduate pharmacists to look after drug-related affairs.
Pharmacists have always been vocal about ensuring adequate participation of pharmacists in the health services of the country. However, the way we present the issue may create the misconception that this is simply a question of honouring and employing pharmacy professionals.
Until we can underscore and make the people realize the importance of ensuring adequate participation of pharmacists in hospitals and retail pharmacies in the national interest for the sake of development and modernization of the country’s health system, it would not be possible to create a large scale impact to motivate/compel the policy makers to take the necessary steps.
In consideration of the favourable atmosphere for a change and reform, created in the overall environment of the country after the July revolution, there has come a good opportunity for bringing necessary changes in the health sector. The demand that the pharmacy professionals of the country have long been making for the appointment of graduate pharmacists in government hospitals should be presented again in detail at the relevant levels of the current government.
To ensure adequate solution to this problem, a technical cadre should be created for pharmacists like that for physicians in the civil service.
A phased plan for ensuring recruitment of graduate pharmacists in pharmacy shops may be presented for consideration, which would include a proposal to make the recruitment of a graduate pharmacist mandatory in large pharmacy shops with immediate effect.
With the number of graduate pharmacists being produced in the country at the moment, if appropriate policies are adopted at the government level and with a specific plan, it is possible to bring all the activities related to medicine in all the hospitals and pharmacy shops of the country under the supervision of graduate pharmacists within a certain period of time. How long should we keep us behind the global standard that is followed in running the healthcare system in all the developed countries of the world, even in the Middle Eastern countries?
(The writer is Professor of Pharmacy, Jahangirnagar University).