News from the current edition of the International Pharmacy Journal
FIP's plea for 'activist' pharmacists
El Salvador. The main threat for the pharmaceutical
profession is a financial one. Prices of medicines are getting
higher and higher, all over the world, and because the pharmacy is
the last part of the distribution chain, it is there that the
authorities seek to economise.
Mr. Alan Davidson, Secretary General of the International
Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), who was invited to Latin America
last November, presented in El Salvador some ambitious plans for
tomorrow's pharmacy. Ambitious, but realistic, and
therefore it seemed useful to us to give you the highlights of
his speech, it was reported in the French Newsletter 'Les
Nouvelles Pharmaceutiques'.
However, real savings cannot be made by selling cheaper
medicines, but by preventing patients from entering into the
hospital circuit. This know-how of pharmacists is also a strong
argument against the second threat: distribution of medicines by
non-pharmacists. Therefore, we have to show people
that a pharmacist is the most effective and, in the end, the
cheapest distributor of medicines.
One of our main challenges is education. Pharmacists have
to learn how to interact with patients, because their knowledge
and experience are of enormous importance to them. When educated
properly, pharmacists can prevent almost 10% of all hospitalisations.
But pharmacists have to take the future in their own hands.
We have to make sure that there is always a pharmacist present in
every pharmacy, who is constantly available and capable of giving
advice to patients.
We also have to become more involved with health policy,
on all levels and therefore we have to organise ourselves, to be
able to discuss problems and to resolve them together.
Alan W Davidson
General Secretary, International Pharmaceutical Federation
a.davidson@fip.nl
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Carolyn Green, Sen.Pharm.Adviser
ECHO International Health Services,
Ullswater Crescent, Coulsdon, Surrey CR5 2HR UK
Phone: 44(0)181 660 2220 Fax: 44(0)181 668 0751
E-mail: advisers@echointl.demon.co.uk
echointnlhealth@ofl.btx400.co.uk
Time: 11:54:06
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