One pharmacist for every 2,000 M'sians

Kota Kinabalu: Malaysia is projected to have a pharmacist-to-population ratio of 1:2000 by 2017.President of the Sabah Pharmaceutical Society (SPS), Susan Pan said this is the standard suggested by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for a developed nation.

According to her, there are some 7,117 pharmacists in the public sector and 5,177 pharmacists in the private sector, totalling 12, 294 pharmacists (including community pharmacists) nationwide.

"As far as Malaysia is concerned, we had a pharmacist-to-population ratio of 1:2448 as of December 31, 2014.

This is according to data kept by the Health Informatics Centre of the Ministry of Health.

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And as of September 1, 2015, Malaysia has a pharmacist-to-population ratio of 1:2315," she said.

In the Sabah context, data as at August 31 this year shows there are 623 pharmacists in the public sector, and 217 pharmacists in the private sector.

The SPS President stressed that the role of pharmacists in Malaysia had evolved from product-centred to service-based and now this profession has transformed into being patient-focused to address the growing needs of the healthcare industry

Asked whether SPS visits schools to give talks on pharmacy as a career, Pan said : "This is one area which our committee will be looking into and developing. We have been involved in career guidance fairs with other industries to introduce pharmacy as a career choice to students."

According to her, many pharmacists have also taken in students into their respective pharmacies to give them on-the-job experience and first-hand exposure to the profession.

"The feedback has been positive and we see an increase of youth taking pharmacy as an undergraduate degree."

Meanwhile, Pan said pharmacists in the private sector are looking forward to the new Pharmacy Act which may allow them to have a practising certificate like the doctors and the dentists so that they (pharmacists) can work in different places.

"Right now, the way we (pharmacists) are being regulated, one pharmacist can only practise in one premises.

That's it. Our licence pertains to the physical location of our practice.

Every time you want to change your place of work, you must write in to the Pharmacy Enforcement Branch here to get them to produce a new licence for you with a new address," she lamented.

From another perspective, Pan said SPS is also advocating change in respect of pharmacy ownership "in that we feel very strongly that the practice should be owned by the pharmacist and not businessmen considering that it is a professional practice with adherence to ethics".

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On the blatant lack of community pharmacies in rural areas, she noted that more retail pharmacies were being opened in out of the city areas, in places like Kota Marudu, Tenom, Kundasang, Sipitang and Keningau.

"We now have two or three retail pharmacies in some of the rural districts," she said.

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