The Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA) recently sent a representation to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoH&FW) demanding the government to ensure that, all the pharmacists are given equal opportunity to do their part in the drug distribution system. It has stressed that the government should take pro active steps to involve the pharmacists from the country in logistics and all other aspects of drug procurement and distribution system.

This demand comes in the wake of the planning commission’s strategy to roll out free medicines to all in the public hospitals and IPA wants government to insist the state governments to follow the model adopted by the Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation and develop a logistic system involving pharmacists as a vital part of it. Raj Vaidya, vice president-chairman, community pharmacy division, IPA said, “The government should realise that the pharmacists in the country are well educated and trained enough to handle drugs and can play a vital role in ensuring better access of medicines to the patients along with providing counselling and patient support. But for this it is essential that our role is well identified and recognised in the society by the government and the industry. We want the government to make us part of all the discussions undertaken by the decision makers so that even we have a say in the process related to the use of medicines in the country at various levels.”

In the representation sent on December 7 to the Department of Health, the association insisted on widening the scope of the pharmacists by utilising their professional services in the healthcare system. It demanded that the entire pharmacy department should be headed by a chief pharmacist having minimum qualification of M Pharm and other requisite training and experience as per the NHRC guidelines. But most importantly it stated that the government should constitute a Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee (PTC) with chief pharmacists as its member secretary to compile and regularly update hospital formulary and standard treatment guidelines (STGs).

“Our main agenda is to ensure that all the pharmacists are given their due which will ultimately result in benefiting the society in general. We believe that by involving pharmacists in all national health programmes and giving them a fair chance to utilise their full potential will improve the rational use of medicines and patient compliance in the country,” Vaidya pointed out.

The recommendation stressed that the dispensing of medicines should be strictly done only by a registered pharmacist. It also pointed out that to widen the scope, the pharmacy department should be given the responsibility to look after the purchase, inventory control, storage and dispensing of medicines along with other activities like pharmacovigilance, drug information services, attending ward rounds, bedside counselling, maintaining patients medical records, carrying out prescription audits etc.