Quality health, pharmaceutical care: Mayor
Published on: Sunday, March 26, 2017
Kota Kinabalu: Efforts are made to ensure that Sabah, in general, and Kota Kinabalu City, in particular, provide quality service in health and pharmaceutical care. Mayor Datuk Yeo Boon Hai said this move is in tandem with Kota Kinabalu attracting many tourists, both foreign and local, making the city vibrant with life."Our airport is the second busiest in the whole country with connections to many international and domestic destinations. Tourists are all attracted by the clean air and conducive environment for travel," he said when officiating at the opening ceremony of City Parade Pharmacy in Damai (Luyang) and Likas, Saturday.ADVERTISEMENT
Congratulating the management on the strategic location of the pharmacies in the two areas of growth, Yeo said Kota Kinabalu is growing at a rapid pace with several hubs of development, including Damai and Likas."Thus, with the many private health facilities and community pharmacies, there are ample opportunities for medical and health tourism to flourish," he added.The Mayor called for support to enable Kota Kinabalu City Hall (DBKK) to realise its vision of a litter-free City, saying initiatives relating to cleanliness, effective household waste management, security and smooth traffic flow are taken to make Kota Kinabalu one of the most liveable cities in this region."In this regard, we need the cooperation and support of all the KK residents. The City Hall team has made tremendous progress in cleaning up the areas of the city, including the rivers, to ensure an environmentally healthy city," he said, adding all the measures taken will add value to our property development.ADVERTISEMENT
Earlier, Datuk Nancy Ho, who is an Executive Council Member of the Commonwealth Pharmacists Association (CPA), stressed that pharmacists have a role to play to educate patients and promote a healthy lifestyle.According to her, the CPA has found many new antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria, and advocated a campaign against microbial resistance by careful use of antibiotics.
ADVERTISEMENT
"In light of this, it is heartening to note that community pharmacists throughout the country provide information to enhance healthy living. The setting up of City Parade Pharmacies is one such initiative to serve as information centres on smoking cessation, weight management and dadah abuse."We applaud the effective role played by award-winning DBKK in combating dadah abuse. In our quest to meet the needs of the community, we as community pharmacists would offer our services as strategic partners," Ho said.In this regard, she suggested that DBKK study the strategic locations of various licensed premises so that activities are well spread. "In other words, some sort of 'zoning' of outlets is done to ensure measured distance is maintained to enhance effective distribution of services. In certain countries like Australia, minimum distances between professional outlets are encouraged."While the World Health Organisation (WHO) recognises Malaysia as a country with a very successful primary healthcare programme, Ho observed that our modern lifestyle has resulted in an upsurge of many non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. "By 2020, the incidence of diabetes may rise from 2.6 million now to 4.5 million sufferers. Malaysians are also among the fattest in Asia, thanks to the abundance of good food. One out of three Malaysians aged 40 to 59 is overweight," she pointed out.Ho also noted that Malaysia is set to become an aged nation by 2030 when 15pc of her population will be more than 60 years old. "This results in higher needs for geriatric care and medications."On the record, Pharmacist-Manager of City Parade Pharmacy, Damai, Jemima Ho has been accredited by the Ministry of Health as an mQuit pharmacist. (Quit is an integrated quit smoking service encompassing both public and private facilities in Malaysia). "I am the first such pharmacist in Kota Kinabalu. We as mQuit pharmacists will walk with smokers through the journey of quitting the unhealthy smoking habit though it is not easy," she said, adding that the pharmacy also offers smoking cessation service apart from basic screening services such as glucose, total cholesterol, uric acid and body mass index (BMI) tests.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
Daily Express Malaysia
