Pharmacists are people too

THE EDITOR: With respect to the article written by D Johnson published on Saturday January 29, 2005 on Page 12 of your newspaper. I wish to express my sympathy to those in the public who are truly ignorant of the plight of health care workers. Mr Johnson refers to pharmacists being able to hold down two jobs and attaining two salaries. Did he consider the plight of those who despite having a four-year degree having to work a minimum of 12 hours daily and not even live comfortably but have to struggle to make ends meet? He considers money but not the work produced, pharmacy is not CEPEP Mr Johnson. Despite what you may think, it is a highly skilled job and you had the audacity to call pharmacists professional whilst condemning their every action in the same breath.

Further to this, you said that TT relies heavily on these professionals. Consider this good sir. Professionals are paid for a professional salary, pharmacists are not. Before putting your foot in your mouth, get your facts in order. Look to see if there is a structure for pharmacists, look for trends in upward mobility, look for incentives to stay in the service, look for opportunities for training and development, look for ability to improve the quality of service provided, look for the introduction of clinical pharmacy and pharmaceutical care. I often question why UWI implemented a four year degree when the CPO, the Ministry of Health and the medical fraternity cannot see or put measures in place for clinical pharmacists to play a bigger role. Clinical pharmacy improves patient care and thus enhances patient outcome whilst improving cost effectiveness.

Why they has it not been implemented? And you say the world is moving on. You again contradicted yourself by saying the world is moving on with or without everyone on board. I think the general public believes that public pharmacists are against CDAP. Let me reassure you, this is not the case. We just believe that with respect to cost effectiveness, if the money spent on CDAP were to be spent improving the public pharmacies, many of the problems patients face would not occur. However, the Pharmacy Board, MPATT, Dr Anand Chattergoon, UWI and the Ministry of Health think that it makes economic sense to spend more than $50 million to supply 42 CDAP drugs, most of which are generic brands, as opposed to 11.5 million on public pharmacies which supply 1,200 drugs. If the public have no problem with the abuse and unnecessary use of tax dollars, why should pharmacists complain? It’s just that we see it differently being in the health sector.

Filipino pharmacists are coming and I hope that they are given no special allowances or preferences over locals and it would be interesting to see how they live on a pharmacist’s salary which would be approximately $2800 per month during their pre-registration and $5280 after they become registered. Perhaps, they will also need to work two jobs since TT relies so heavily on these “professionals.” Finally, I wish to comment on your final words of wisdom which I know you spent a lot of time on, “Go jump in a tsunami nuh,” I wish to remind you that humour is one thing, stupidity is quite another. As you are aware, over 200,000 people died in a tsunami. Please show respect and human decency to those who were less fortunate than we. This from a man who dares to call we self-righteous people who withhold our services without guilt. A single event must never be judged, always look at what occurred leading up to the event. May God bless you always.

S JANKIE
Port-of-Spain