‘Poor recognition of pharmacists unfair’

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The Director of Pharmacy at the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), Dr Hamidu Abdulai, has bemoaned the poor recognition of pharmacists and other healthcare staff in the facility, saying it is unfair and unfortunate for healthcare delivery in the area.

He said the work and role of other healthcare staff, pharmacists to be specific, cannot be downplayed and shouldn’t be looked down upon.

Speaking at the Annual Retreat for pharmacists of the facility, organised by the Pharmacy Department of TTH, Dr Abdulai noted that over the years, the Pharmacy Department had had to battle with inadequate storage facility, low pharmacy staff, and inadequate equipment for drug manufacturing.

In spite of all these, according to Dr Hamidu, the Pharmacy Department of the teaching hospital has been able to increase direct patient care services and restructured the drug information centre to include research and pharmacovigilance. 

According to Dr Hamidu, there will be a full deployment of Information and Communications Technology to run operations of the centre and research findings from the operational research work will be published to inform decision making in the coming years.

Prof. Kwame Ohene Buabeng, Head of Pharmacy Practice at the Kwame Nkrumh University of Science and Technology added that medicines are important commodities for effective healthcare delivery. In facilities without essential medicines, the quality of healthcare suffers.

The pharmacist is a health scientists very knowledgeable and highly skilled with the use of medicines to improve health outcomes in systems and society.

Pharmacy is a health profession and thus the pharmacist has a huge responsibility to society to contribute to its health and socioeconomic development.

Pharmacists in healthcare facilities like TTH are also key members of the healthcare team who work in collaboration with medical officers, nurses and all other members of the team to improve health and well being with optimal outcomes from their services.

He added that, the role of the pharmacist has expanded beyond the traditional medicines use and supply chain management to clinical pharmacy practice, research and public health roles, as well infection prevention and control and Antimicrobial stewardship also being one of the key roles of pharmacists to minimise the menace of antimicrobial resistance which has been declared a health security threat in health systems by the World Health Organisation.

He encouraged the pharmacists at the TTH hospital to unleash the potentials they have and make their presence and professional skills felt to the benefit of TTH, their clients, Tamale and Northern Ghana.