World Pharmacist Day is celebrated every year on September 25th worldwide under the aegis of International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) which is an international body representing over four million pharmacists, educators and pharmaceutical scientists. FIP is a non-governmental organization that was established on this day in 1912 and has been collaborating with the World Health Organization since 1948. This year’s theme for the day has been chosen to be “Transforming global health”. While describing the main aim behind these celebrations, President of FIP, Dominique Jordan has stated that “We aim to show how pharmacists contribute to a world where everyone benefits from access to safe, effective, quality and affordable medicines and health technologies, as well as from pharmaceutical care services”. The purpose of World Pharmacists Day, which was brought to life at the FIP Council 2009 in Istanbul, was to encourage activities that promote and advocate the role of the pharmacist in improving health in every corner of the world. Main objective of the World Pharmacist Day campaign is to raise awareness about the professional activities of a qualified pharmacist and to educate the public on their significant role and crucial responsibilities in healthcare system and also to inculcate a sense of pride, solidarity and awareness among the pharmacy professionals on a global level. Pharmacists represent the third largest healthcare professional group in the world and India too is home to more than ten lakh registered pharmacists. After bringing out Pharmaceutical Workforce Development Goals in 2016, FIP has unveiled its “FIP Development Goals” this year on September 21 outlining measures needed to develop this profession in consonance with Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.
International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) has selected the theme of “transforming global health” primarily with a view to lay a roadmap on how to make progress on its twenty one FIP Development Goals in the coming years so that substantial headway could be made in improving global health in sync with UN Sustainable Development Goals. Though this might seem to be an attainable goal in the global context owing to their considerable progress already made in their respective healthcare sectors, it is being perceived by many as a far-fetched dream back home in the national backdrop. Looking at the situation vis-à-vis pharmacy workforce, education and science within India it appears that the country is lagging far behind than developed nations whose FIP members have coined this theme for this year’s world pharmacist day in light of their own regional contexts. In a country where almost 65% population is believed to lack access to medicines as per World Medicines Situation report of WHO, standards of healthcare continue to be quite low that was duly accepted by the government at the onset of this year’s pandemic, quality and effectiveness of medicines is doubtful and their safety is not monitored systematically in all the healthcare facilities. Further prescribing and dispensing practices are flawed and drug use patterns among patients are not up to the mark. Pharmacy workforce though qualified is not empowered and integrated with the healthcare team mainly comprising of doctors and nurses. Clinical pharmacy departments and services within government hospitals are almost non-existent and other good practices with respect to drug selection, procurement, tendering, quantification, storage, distribution and use are rarely followed. As such primary responsibility and challenge before the pharmacists within India continues to be the service delivery to the utmost satisfaction of the system as well as the patients. Continuation and upgradation of their services amid severe financial, logistic and systemic constraints are their immediate concerns before they could think about transformation of the national health scenario let alone global health. Nevertheless pharmacists can contribute in their own modest and feasible way in improving the healthcare system and maximizing the therapeutic, clinical, economic and humanistic outcomes of patients through their concerted education, scientific research and practice-based initiatives. A sizeable number of qualified pharmacists have already been contributing substantially in these spheres all across the country in spite of all their limitations and there is no doubt that well-qualified and professionally trained pharmacists can contribute significantly towards improving as well as transforming national health that in turn will automatically contribute to the global health owing to the fact that India is home to more than 138 crore human beings.
Need of the hour is to re-orient our pharmacy education and profession in India towards hospital and clinical pharmacy, enhance competencies, clinical skills, motivation and efficiency levels of pharmacy graduates and work towards their capacity building for making them an integral part of the health care system where they can assist the medical practitioners in providing optimal evidence-based care to the patients. Our pharmacists should be well-equipped, professionally trained and legally empowered to participate in medical ward rounds and give assistance to doctors in selection of an ideal drug therapies and their dosage. They should master the art and skill of drug therapy and disease-state monitoring for rational therapeutics as well as rational diagnostics. Our pharmacists need to be professionally fit to render adverse drug reaction and therapeutic drug monitoring services, detection of medication errors and other drug-related problems, patient counseling, drug and poison information services, pharmaco-economic and pharmaceutical care services, detection of drug interactions besides other hospital and community pharmacy services. Additionally they should be in a position to contribute towards formulation of hospital formularies, drugs and therapeutics committees, standard treatment guidelines and medicines management in hospitals. Pharmacists must be capable of evaluating the effectiveness and rationality of medication therapy, in improving patient safety, in stimulating improvements and standardization in medication-use processes, in minimizing costs of medication therapy and in meeting or exceeding internal and external quality standards. They should also be competent to suggest policy measures and interventions for the improved use of medicines both within and outside the hospitals.
Once our pharmacists become well-equipped, professionally trained
and technically competent to render all these kinds of services there ought to
be adequate administrative structures and legal statutory framework in place to
empower them to deliver those services. Pharmacy Practice Regulations of 2015
that have already been notified by the Pharmacy Council of India in concurrence
with the Govt. of India on January 15th, 2016. These regulations
need to be adopted by all the state and UT governments and implemented in all
district and divisional level secondary and tertiary care hospitals. Every such
hospital should have a full-fledged clinical pharmacy department with adequate
workforce, infrastructure, budget and statutory powers for making necessary
interventions as and when required. Roles and responsibilities of clinical
pharmacists within the hospital settings should be very well defined and there
should be necessary supervision and monitoring to ensure compliance with the
duties assigned to them. Coronavirus pandemic has exposed the chinks in some of
the best healthcare systems of the world besides leaving healthcare systems of
developing nations grappling with their inadequate workforce, infrastructure
and other facilities in the face of an unprecedented outbreak of the disease.
Simultaneously it has underscored the need to revisit, review and revive
healthcare policies, settings, facilities and the procedures with a view to
carve adequate space for the professionally qualified and well-trained people
like pharmacists to contribute towards confronting such challenges and
unforeseen circumstances. During this pandemic we have seen even nursing
orderlies and multi-purpose health workers being employed to combat the
consequences of the outbreak at the spur of the moment whereas there should
have been proper disaster management rules in places to allow only qualified
and well-trained personnel to step in at such occasions. Now the whole world
must strive to develop human resource for any such eventuality in future and
pharmacists are a force to reckon with in this direction.
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