HARIPUR: For maximising the outreach of benefits that have been offered to the citizens especially in rural areas, the government must fill vacant posts of medical officers both in public and private sectors with the health professionals holding the five-year degree of Doctor of Pharmacy.

The demand was made by Pakistan Pharmacists Association, KP chapter, secretary general Dr Ehsan while talking to Dawn here on Wednesday. He said that though the KP government had taken steps for filling the posts of medical doctors in the province, but there was still lot to be done in this regard.

He said that for facilitating the residents of remote areas to have easy access to healthcare facilities, it must fill the posts of qualified healthcare professionals with pharmacy graduates holding the degree of Doctor of Pharmacy.

He claimed that this step would not only discourage quackery, but also promote rational use of medicines. The medical practitioners holding Pharm D have to study the main subject of pharmacology for five years and know about the formula, manufacturing process, uses and abuses of allopathic medicines, he said. However, he lamented that the professional capabilities of qualified pharmacists were not acknowledged by the government.

Answering a question, Dr Ehsan said that on the basis of qualification of Doctor of Pharmacy the Pakistan Pharmacy Council had allowed them to use the prefix of Dr with their names through a circular on March 31, 2015.

He said that according to treatment protocols issued by the WHO, a health practitioner holding 17 years of education of Pharm D would be appointed on each 20 beds of a hospital while according to the Pharmacy Act 1967 a qualified pharmacist was only allowed to dispense and prescribe medicines to a patient. He said that in KP only teaching hospitals had implemented the provisions of appointing ‘A’ category pharmacists.

He said that the pharmacy graduates were fully capable of prescribing medicines. He said that there were over 4,000 Pharm D pharmacists registered with the association in KP. He said that Pakistan Pharmacists Association, KP chapter, had held a meeting with the health secretary requesting him to create posts of pharmacists in government hospitals of the province. He hoped that the government would create over 120 posts of category ‘A’ pharmacists in the district and tehsil headquarters hospitals from the next fiscal year.

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2018