Feature

Good Hospital Pharmacy a Must!

A. Y. Sk. Feroz Uddin

In Bangladesh, hospital pharmacy services of both the government and private institutions are of very much drab and bleak for its perfections. Anyone of us can find our hospital pharmacies as of the same arrangement of merely dispensaries to stock and hand over the drug products to the patients on the prescriptions. Currently, it is the main and the only specialty of the professional deliveries of our hospital pharmacies. This is very much shocking to observe and accept by any conscious citizen, politician, health administrators and especially the graduate & post graduate Pharmacists. Graduate and post graduate Pharmacists have been placing their wholeheartedness to participate in the interdisciplinary health care professionals' team in hospitals to develop the standard and usefulness of the hospital pharmacy and to brew the quality and standard of our health care system. It is very much painful to note that no government of the last 37 years of our independence has thought about and taken any lead to upgrade the standard and merit of the pharmacy services for the health keeping interests of the people through the placement of graduate and postgraduate Pharmacists in our hospitals.

Very recently the span of our hospital pharmacy practices has got variations through the rationale employment of graduate Pharmacists in four of our private hospitals. These variations are not perceptible to the mass because of the very fewer number of the employed graduate Hospital Pharmacists in such a very fewer number of hospitals. Still then, anyone would admit those hospitals' lead to the way to transform the currently existing backwardness and less useful mode of hospital pharmacy services to a very useful prototype of modern hospital pharmacy in our country. This will remain as the milestone in the advancement of the standard of our national hospital pharmacy practices and the health care system.

Getting delivery of appropriate quality of health care is one of the most asked basic human rights of our people. No one of the health professionals and the people can sit idle paying no attention to the quality of the health care deliveries of our country. Our people are always demanding better quality and total health care from the hospitals and other institutions of our country. No one should ignore the standing prerogatives and rights of all professionals to serve the people. And no category of our health professionals should allowed in taking over the responsibilities of the other category.

Health care system requires coordinated efforts of mainly four kind of health professionals; namely- doctors, pharmacists, nurses and diagnostic professionals. Competence of the working professionals directly affects the overall quality of the health care deliveries to the people. It is pleasant to note that professional competence of three of the stated professionals of our health care system is quite satisfactory excluding the presently available quality and services of the pharmacists. This is due to the reason that enough quantities of specialist and consultant professionals of those three professions are available at the hospitals etc. But the present quality of our hospital pharmacy services is of very low standard due to fact that diploma Pharmacists are the caretaker of the pharmacy services to the patients and that specialist pharmacy professional's (viz. graduate and postgraduate Pharmacists) expert array of pharmacy services are not available in our hospitals. This is due to the reason that Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of our country has not make it mandatory to employ graduate and postgraduate Pharmacists at the hospital pharmacies and other service points of the heath care deliver system of this country. This sort of specialist Pharmacists' deficiency is greatly affecting the trials and quality of the health care deliveries of the three other professionals to the people and finally causing bad impact to our health and economy. No kind of professionals but the graduate and postgraduate Pharmacists are the skilled professionals to ensure good quality and total range of pharmacy services in hospitals and other position of our heath care delivery system.

It is one of the major requirements for the health institutions of the world that registered graduate and postgraduate Pharmacists are to be employed in hospital pharmacies for providing necessary quality and standard of pharmacy services to the patients. So, why should it not be regarded and followed in our country also?! Our government has to incorporate, encourage and support the posting of graduate & postgraduate pharmacists in our hospital pharmacies. Inter-disciplinary health professional's committee approach in hospitals and other health care institution should be encouraged to practice for the beneficial care to patients. And that graduate & postgraduate pharmacist is positioned as integral member of the interdisciplinary health care professionals' team in hospitals for ensuring appropriate use of drugs. The Pharmacists are to be authorized to be actively involved in designing the medication use and medication management activities in hospitals.

Hospitals are the main surge points of health care service delivery to the people. Employment of sufficient number of graduate and postgraduate Pharmacists in our hospital pharmacies will definitely and quickly improve the required quality of the hospital pharmacies. It is praiseworthy to note that our country is producing high quality of pharmaceuticals in our pharmaceutical industries and are exporting drugs to 67 countries of the world. Again, if graduate and postgraduate Pharmacists are employed in our hospitals, there will be a sharp improve the quality and standard of the pharmacy services of the hospitals and that will finally synchronize positive impact to the coordinated efforts of other health care professionals to ensure better quality health care deliveries to our people.

It is pleasing to note that more then twenty universities (both public and private) are now producing graduate Pharmacists in our country and that Pharmacy Council of Bangladesh is keeping on good administrative actions to maintain international standard of pharmacy education in this country. Pharmacy Council of Bangladesh is also registering competent Pharmacists through examinations of international standard. Four of our universities are also producing post graduate pharmacists. Thus, by this time, we have enough number of graduate and postgraduate Pharmacists who are available and are worthy to be employed in hospital pharmacies to upgrade the quality and standard of the pharmacy services. Our government will not need to train or engage any consultancy service to upgrade the standard of our hospital pharmacy.

Graduate and postgraduate Pharmacists keep good academic knowledge to share institutional care to patients in coordination with other professionals of the health caring team of the hospitals. They are well educated on infection prevention and control, correction of medication related problems, rational utilization of drugs, checking and monitoring drug interactions, controlling adverse drug reactions, checking for contraindications, performing patient counseling, provision of clinical pharmacy for drug and disease management and for the provision of pharmaceutical care to the patients and the people. Graduate Pharmacists can participate in health oriented educational programs of hospitals for patients and allied health members. Pharmacists can educate patients on safe use of drugs and poison-prevention measures.

Pharmacists can initiate or participate in research activities in hospitals for the advancement of health oriented knowledge against disease & its treatment and to research on investigational drugs. Pharmacists can provide unbiased and dependable drug information for all health professionals in the hospitals. Pharmacists can carry on pharmacokinetic studies involving individualization of drug-dosing in patients, biopharmaceutical studies of drug products and radiopharmaceutical dosage formulations, and pharmacoeconomic studies, as well as administrative and professional studies on drug-distribution systems and drug-utilization review studies.

Our graduate and postgraduate Pharmacists are competent in delivering all of the stated total pharmacy services and can also manufacture all kinds of drugs and dosage forms including intravenous nutrients and safer intravenous admixturing responsibilities dependably in the hospitals, obviously through good designing and erection of appropriate setup in the manufacturing area of the hospital pharmacy departments.

Thus, through the appointment of graduate and postgraduate hospital Pharmacists, we can have total pharmacy care in our hospitals. And thereby our hospitals will be always self-reliant in respect of the supply of appropriate quality of drugs with their appropriate utilization to ascertain better quality of health care to our people.