Union government should look at utilising the large pool of one million pharmacists in the country to support the growing shortfall of health workers in primary and community health centres. Although considerable efforts are being made by the Centre to take on pharmacists to support its shortfall of medical personnel, a lot more needs to be done, stated Dr B Suresh, president, Pharmacy Council of India and vice chancellor, JSS University, Mysore.

There are a large number of pharmacists which are underemployed in the country at the government medical and regulatory institutions. For instance, the government had set up 12 pharmacovigilance centres in the country and 11 of these facilities are manned by medical professionals with only one centre offering an opening for a pharmacist. This should change and pharmacists should be selected for many of these assignments, Dr Suresh told Pharmabiz at the sidelines if the 62nd Indian Pharma Congress which was held at Manipal between December 17-19, 2010.

“The only way to achieve the goals of the Pharma Vision 2020 would be to ensure pharmacists get the right opportunity and serve as a link between patient and the doctor. Going by the serious shortage of doctors, pharmacists can pitch in to support the healthcare services in the areas of medication management, outcome monitoring and dosage monitoring,” he added.

“The pharmaceutical industry which has come up to a level of recognition now needs to take the assistance of pharmacists in the areas of promoting safe, effective, rational medicine use and patient counselling for India to be able to achieve the Pharma Vision 2020 mandate.”

Currently, the country has the largest qualified pharmacists pool compared to the developing countries of Africa and South Asia. While it is estimated by the World Health Organisation that funds to the tune of US$ 2.5 billion will be needed to train the pharmacists in these countries, Indian government should tap the opportunity of allowing pharmacists to take assignments in these countries under a mutual agreement between nations facing a shortfall of healthcare workers, pointed out Dr Suresh.

Therefore the qualified pharmacists in India now need to increase their expertise and expand their knowledge base in the areas of high tech tailored drug therapies for not just communicable diseases but also maternal and ageing population diseases.

Over the last four IPCs beginning from Mumbai in 2006, Pharmacy Council of India and the IPCA have taken up the onus to create an awareness at these platforms on the importance of pharmacy regulations, building trust, safety and efficiency in healthcare. “We have made inroads as far as extensive and intensive information, education and communication exercises are concerned. Now the government should ensure that pharmacists are utilised in many areas of the healthcare services”, he stated.

A pharmacist can play a wider role in reducing fatalities arising out of medication errors, maternal healthcare, child immunisation programmes, besides controlling the spread of AIDS, HIV and tuberculosis. The government will be able to reduce the disease burden if their services are well utilised opined Dr. Suresh. Therefore the need of the hour is to sensitize the indispensable role of pharmacists in the healthcare space, he added.