With a view to ensure best pharmacy practices in the state, the Maharashtra State Pharmacy Council (MSPC) is soon planning to send a representation to the Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) urging it to initiate steps to conduct state level entrance examination for registered pharmacists seeking transfer from other states.

This, they believe, will help in giving membership to only those deserving candidates seeking transfer who will prove their expertise and technicality by clearing the exams along with addressing the other state to state registration issues.

Transfer of registered pharmacists from one state to other state council is legally permitted without any examination or selection criterion. However, MSPC--which has over 1,25,000 registered pharmacists working in government and private organisations pointed out that over the years there have been an increase in the number of cases that suggest under performance or lack of knowhow in handling this patient centric job by the pharmacists who come into the state through transfer.

It has been observed that though these candidates have the requisite qualification, they seldom have the much needed expertise to perform their duty aptly, which is essential to ensure better services to the patients. Vaijnath Eknath Jaguste, vice president, MSPC stressed that pharmacy is a very sensitive profession, where the pharmacists have to deal with the patients directly on a day to day basis. Thus it becomes most important to ensure that the pharmacists are technically sound with thorough knowledge in dealing with medicines and patient requirements.

In Maharashtra, there are 125 pharmacy colleges which impart high class training to the pharmacists to ensure that they deliver best services to the patients. Even MSPC recently started an online pharmacy course with duration of three months at a minimal fees of Rs.100 for interested students to update and train them on latest pharmacy practices which they believe is essential to ensure better services to the patients.

“Our motto is to ensure that all the candidates registered with us are properly trained in their field for handling patients. However, we have noticed that these pharmacists though registered in their respective states hardly have the required skill and knowledge base to perform their responsibly properly resulting in questioning the reputation of the profession itself. Thus it is imperative to adopt entrance test format to ensure that only deserving candidates get the membership through transfer to the Maharashtra state council to maintain the standard in the profession,” stated Jaguste.

He further pointed out that the main reason behind this problem is lack of uniformity in standardising pharmacy education among different states across the country, leading to vast disparity in performance, leading to an unhealthy trend of qualified but unskilled pharmacists working in the profession. Thus apart from adopting entrance exams for monitoring the quality of pharmacist joining the state council, MSPC also urged the centre to take steps to ensure uniformity in the way education is imparted in pharmacy colleges across the country, as well.