Urging the government of Uttar Pradesh to take a cue from the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand while posting and allotting duties to pharmacists in the health sub centres (PHCs) in rural areas, the UP branch of the Indian hospital pharmacists association (IHPA) has demanded the government of UP to appoint pharmacists in all the primary health centres in the state as what has been done in Uttarakhand.

For the first time in the country, according to IHPA, government of Uttarakhand has appointed pharmacists in all the PHCs to provide first-aid and symptomatic treatment to people living in remote areas. They have been allotted duties of first aid, emergency treatment and treatment of common ailments, in addition to procurement, storage, supply and dispensing of drugs and patient counselling.  These duties have been kept under comprehensive category.

“Uttarakhand government has become the first to post pharmacists in health sub centres with a view to provide first-aid and symptomatic treatment to people living in remote areas. I hope that about 20 per cent of the rural patients who rush to district hospitals and secondary referral units (SRUs) due to non availability of facilities for primary treatment and first-aid facilities, can be treated in the PHCs provided trained pharmacists are appointed in these centres. So our association has requested government of India to create the post of pharmacists in all the PHCs. At present there are about 1,50,000 PHCs in the country. IHPA will actively put the demand before new central government mobilising support from all pharma organisations”, said R A Gupta, vice president of IHPA.

He said, in most of the states/organisations pharmacists perform the emergency duties, give injections, vaccinations like ARV and help the doctors in resuscitation of the patients, medico legal examination, help for postmortem along with VVIP duty and mobile duty in addition to his normal duties in the drug store. Pharmacists posted in PHCs,  community health centers provide first-aid, give injections, assisting 24 hour emergency duty and symptomatic treatment in absence of allopathic doctors.

In the light of this duty assignment, the association says, the Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) should re-draft the education regulation 1991 for the diploma in pharmacy course (D Pharm) in order to equip the pharmacists working in the government hospitals to perform additional duties such as first aid, emergency treatment and treatment of common ailments. Majority of the working pharmacists are diploma holders. Raising this demand, IHPA has given a memorandum to the PCI, with copy to the central health minister, said Gupta.

“So the PCI should restructure the diploma course as per the need of the hospital, primary health centers, community health centers wherein pharmacists render first- aid and emergency treatments in the absence of allopathic doctors. Government of Uttarakhand has already sanctioned it. The seventh central pay commission is now going to revise the pay structure. If PCI redrafts the curriculum of the diploma course, it will be beneficial for the pharmacists of the entire country”, he added.

Hailing the encouraging step adopted by the Uttarakhand government, he said, recently it has revised the pay scale of the pharmacists considering their services and responsibilities, and got parity with nurses. So, Gupta has given a memorandum to the UP government wanting it to revise the pay scale of the state pharmacists.

He said IHPA has active branches in states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Orissa, Nagaland, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and in the union territory of Andaman. The membership strength of the association is 50,000 working pharmacists.