CUTTACK: In a bid to improve availability of essential medicines, particularly for children, in the public sector hospitals and dispensaries, the State Government has launched an extensive programme to spruce up the pharmaceutical supply and management system in its health institutions. The programme, implemented in association with the WHO, under its Better Medicines for Children Project, will work on enhancing the capacities of the pharmacists and motivating them to be proactive in understanding the requirement and be ready to meet the demand. The pharmacists would receive training on drugs and medicine supply chain management. They would be specifically attuned to the four commonly encountered diseases like diarrhoea, pneumonia, malaria and anaemia, which are major cause of child mortality in the State. Over 2,000 pharmacists in the public sector would be covered under the programme in phases. The training would be imparted through the medical colleges and hospitals __ the SCBMCH Cuttack, VSSMCH Burla and MKCGMCH Berhampur __ each having 10 districts under them. Ten trainers from each of the medical colleges would be imparting training to around 280 pharmacists across the districts in the first phase. The trainers have been drawn from Pharmacology, Paediatrics, Community Medicine and Gynaecology. According to a study conducted under the WHO project in the State, availability of child-specific medicines in the Government sector health institutions has been abysmally low at around 17 per cent only. This has impacted health expenditure of the common people. Public spend more than 75 per cent of their health expenditure on medicines because of either non-availability or lack of trust on the medicine dispensed through Government supply. If required essential medicines are available, not only would the mortality be checked, people’s expenses would also come down significantly. “We are striving to develop capacities of the pharmacists, who are vital to effective healthcare delivery system. They would be trained in efficient management of pharmaceutical supply to ensure that no one returns empty-handed or is asked to buy essential medicines from outside. They would also be motivated to educate patients on use of prescriptions and adherence to medications. The spin off to this effort for children’s medicines would be on the adult pharmaceuticals once the better practices fall in habit”, Officer, Essential Medicines and other Drugs of WHO, SEARO, Dr Gitanjali Batmanabane said here. The training of the trainers concluded on Friday. About 280 pharmacists would be covered under the programme by August-end. The programme would then be evaluated for progress to the second phase, Programme Coordinator and Associate Professor of Pharmacology, SCBMCH, Dr Truptirekha Swain said.
Comments
0 comment