E-drug: HIV+ Africans can adhere to ART (cont'd)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think that this talk that Africans of various categories cannot take
their medicines properly is actually questioning the competence of
health workers rather than the "poor Africans". It is suggesting that
the HIV patient is leaving the hospital/pharmacy without clear
instructions on how to take their medication. I agree that the
concept of western time is not common to us but in my experience,
we pharmacists actually tailor the explanation to suit our "African
time". To the African a day is daylight hours (12hrs) so my
instructions will cover both day and night! I don't believe we have
to use the western time to ensure that drugs will be used
accordingly. We are all trained in pharmacokinetics and
pharmacodynamics enough to understand the need for a particular
frequency of taking medication. Maybe people from different parts
of the world should be asked what it means to take medicine three
times a day and then we will hear all their differences. We should
be addressing the issue of access to these drugs to enable these
patients to take them as per instruction and making sure that the
health professionals are doing their job well.
Dr Mary Milcah Atieno Ojoo
Chief Pharmacist;
Gertrudes Garden Childrens Hospital
P O Box 42325
Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: 254 02 763474-7
fax: 254 02 763281
EMail: mojoo@gerties.org
--
Send mail for the `E-Drug' conference to `e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'.
Information and archive http://satellife.healthnet.org/programs/edrug.html
Mail administrative requests to `majordomo@usa.healthnet.org'.
For additional assistance, send mail to: `owner-e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'.