KARACHI, April 5: Speakers at a moot on Thursday insisted that the healthcare system in the country could be made more patient-oriented only when pharmacy professionals were allowed to play their due role in the uplift of the system.

They said that pharmacy in the country was more drug-oriented, which should be overcome by eliminating unethical practices and developing a research-based system ensuring, among other things, the rejection of drugs with serious side-effects as well.

The congress, titled “14th International Pharmacy Conference and Exhibition,” was organised by Pakistan Pharmacists Association (PPA) at Bahria Auditorium. Major-Gen (retd) Dr Shahida Malik, Director General Health, Islamabad, was chief guest at the inauguration ceremony of the conference.

Dr Malik said that the way pharmacists received education and training certainly made them play a unique role in the provision of healthcare services. They are the vital link of healthcare, with pharmaceutical companies on one hand and the patient on the other, she added.

Referring to the demand for amendment in Pharmacy Act of Pakistan, the director general said that promulgation of changes in the said act was under consideration and a consensus document would be sorted out shortly.

PPA president Dr Ali Akbar Siyal, in his welcome address, emphasised the role of pharmacists and said that they were the real custodians of drugs. He urged the federal government to take measures for the promotion of pharmacists in the government sector and improvement in their working conditions.

Obaid Ali, an Assistant Drug Controller of the federal government, made a presentation on the status of pharmacy education and acceptance of pharmacists in the health sector.

He said that companies go for selling their products by pursuing physicians, who, contrary to established practice and ethics, largely preferred not to involve any pharmacist while prescribing medicines to their patients.

Dr Farnaz Malik, Drugs Controller, Minsitry of Health Islamabad, Muhammad Sualeh and Arshad Rahim, Chairman and Secretary of the conference organising committee respectively, Ayaz Ali Khan and Abdul Haseeb Khan also spoke.

PRICING: Talking to newsmen after the inaugural session, Dr Farnaz Malik said that the federal health ministry had already started reviewing the process of drugs registered with it and recently prices of about 20 molecules, including those by multinational companies, had been reduced.