Pharmacy; Always trusted For your Health

Eli-Ukende

Member
Sep 13, 2021
8
6
Pharmacy; always trusted for your health.

Yes! 25th September of each year is a World Pharmacy day celebration. This happens all over the world. And guess what this year’s theme is Pharmacy; always trusted for your health. I want us to be aware of this in its depth.

Let’s begin with word pharmacy itself. I want us to put it in two perspectives. One, Pharmacy is shop/outlet where medicines are prepared and sold. It could be a hospital pharmacy, A community pharmacy, Institutional pharmacy, Consultancy pharmacy. A community pharmacy can be of retail or wholesale pharmacy.

Another way of describing it, can be an academic course. A profession. One could opt for Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy when in university. So when you hear word Pharmacy, It could either of this.

Let’s go to the word Trust. Trust is a virtue. It is a major part of all human relationships. The best social capital you can possess. It is an important element in health care. I know you agree with me. I real don’t think you could receive service from a provider you don’t trust.

There is a significant relationship in trust between health care provider and health outcomes of a community. In various health centers I have visited so far and work, I have experienced patients reported satisfaction with treatment displayed more beneficial healthy behaviors, fewer symptoms, and experienced improved quality of life when they had higher trust with their health care professionals.

Believe me communities trust Pharmacists and all pharmaceutical personnel. So I totally agree with this year’s theme. You could ask me why, and with confidence I can tell you, patients experienced the best interaction with them. They can ask many questions and get best replies from us. We do satisfy their curiosity.

Let’s share three important elements of trust. Positive relationships, Competency/expertise, and consistency.

Positive Relationships. Our genuine interest in patients and time taken to listen to their needs as well as extra efforts during COVID 19 pandemic and other like treatment have helped us to establish meaningful connections and continue to build positive relationships.

Competency/expertise We typically complete our studies followed by a year of internships for Bachelor’s degree in pharmacy. Regular hospital and community pharmacies rotations. We sit for professional exam thereafter. We from there undergo life learning or further training to become more specialized.

Consistency. As the more accessible health care provider in many parts of the world, working in premises that operate in longer working hours than many other health care facilities, we and our pharmacies are able to demonstrate consistently our skills and caring.

Many patient-pharmacist relationships are grounded in trust build over time. The public trusts our advice. They trust us to maintain confidentiality. Government trusts us in vaccinations and immunization and to provide other expanded services such as testing. Health care system trust us to find medicinal solutions ins shortages and so much more.

Trust is a reservoir of a goodwill for future use. And pharmacy has built up a big reserve over many years of caring and excellent service. Now our societies are in general distrust fueled by COVID 19 pandemic. Trust barometers has found that distrust of society leaders has increased distrust of information sources is at higher level. At a time of uncertainty and vaccine hesitancy remains a major challenge, public trust in pharmacy is now important more than ever. We give advice based on best scientific evidences. We can use the trust in us to benefit our communities.
View attachment 1954551




source; Omdirigeringsmeddelande

Let’s go over shortly on Responsibilities of a pharmacists

  • Ensure quality supply of medicine to patients
  • Ensure the supply of medicines is within the Law.
  • Ensure medicines supplied to patients are suitable
  • Advising patients about medicines, including hoe to take them, what interactions may occur
  • Also supervise medicines supply chain and ensure premises and systems are fit for the purpose.
  • Advice other health care professionals about safe and effective medicine use and safe and secure supply of medicines.
  • Responds to patient’s symptoms and advice on medicines for sale in pharmacies.
  • Provide services to patients, such as smoking cessation, blood pressure measurement and cholesterol management.
  • Supervise preparation and production of medicines and assessment of quality of medicines before they are supplied to patients from pharmaceutical manufacturers.
All of these are conducted by the Pharmacy council of Tanzania under the Pharmacy Act, 2011 of Tanzania. Let’s talk a little about it before I finish. There are factors which led to establishment of this act. Trade liberalization, fast advances in science and technologies. The government revised the pharmaceutical and poison act no. 9 of 1978 and enacted the pharmacy act no 7 of 2002 to provide for a better legislation that regulate matters related to practice of pharmacy profession separately from matters related to dealings with medicines and related products. The pharmacy Act no 1 2002 was enacted to give the pharmacy council responsibilities of controlling pharmacy practice which was not included in the Pharmacy act 2002. So the Pharmacy council was established under section 3 of Pharmacy act 2011 after repealing of the pharmacy act no 7 of 2002.

The following are some of the functions of the Pharmacy council of Tanzania which I would like us to know

  • Advising the minister of Health Community development, gender, elderly and children on matters relating to pharmacy practice.
  • Safeguard and promote provision of pharmaceutical services in compliance with norms and values in public and private sectors with goals of achieving definite therapeutic outcomes for the health and quality of life of society.
  • Uphold and safeguard the acceptable standards of pharmacy practice in both public and private sectors.
  • Inquire into any query related to a pharmacy practice raised by the public.
  • In collaboration with Tanzania Commission of universities and National Accreditation Council of Technical Education evaluate academic and practical qualifications for pharmacists, Pharmaceutical technicians and pharmaceutical assistants for the purpose of registration, enrollment and enlisting.
This is the brilliance when it comes to Pharmacy. With enthusiasm I had a chance to share all of these with my community at Radio Pambazuko last Saturday on 25th September 2021. Sharing is caring. I must say I am a proud Pharmaceutical technician. I couldn’t care less about you my dear reader.

Pharmacy; Always trusted for your health.
 
Back
Top Bottom