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ABOUT AUTHOR
Dr. R. S. Thakur
Former Secretary, Pharmacy Council of India.
Email : drramsthakur@gmail.com
World Pharmacists Day is being celebrated across the globe on 25 September 2024. “Pharmacists: Meeting global health needs” is the theme of World Pharmacists Day 2024. This theme emphasizes the important role played by the pharmacists in healthcare globally. International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) a WHO partner patronizes World Pharmacists Day celebrations every year globally to highlight the contributions of pharmacists in building a healthy community. As health is wealth and if health is lost everything is lost, meeting health needs has phenomenal impact on prosperity of any nation.
Health is the most important aspect of life that ensures peace and prosperity in the society. Health needs, demand, supply, access to healthcare facilities and interrelationship among these are vital indicators for wellbeing of any society. In plane words health needs are requirement of medical treatment for improvement, maintenance or slowing down the process of health degradation. Meeting this need appropriately, clinically effectively and economically are the challenges before the governments globally. Preventing health risks and responding to health crises are important strategies in building healthy nation. Pharmacists are the most easily accessible healthcare provider especially for the primary healthcare needs as doctors are scarcely available in rural healthcare set ups.
Reference Id : PHARMATUTOR-ART-3020
This year, on the eve of World Pharmacists Day on 24th September WHO organized a High-level Policy Symposium on Pharmacy Care and Pharmaceutical Services. WHO is also launching report on Community Pharmacy regulatory and practice models in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
In the post-Covid period many nations and organizations across the globe have designed new global health strategies to tackle the challenges of access to healthcare, address the shortage of qualified and skilled healthcare professionals, assess the impact of air pollution and climate change, HIV, emerging infectious disease and antibiotic resistance etc.
Pharmacists help in meeting these challenges by ensuring access to essential medicines; rational and optimum use of medicines; preventing adverse drug reactions, ensuring medication safety and economy of therapy by addressing accessibility and affordability of medicines.
In rural areas pharmacists are first point of contact for health needs and advices as well as providing treatment of minor ailments. In preventive healthcare, pharmacists guide for timely vaccination, improve health literacy by providing health education, provide tips for healthy lifestyle. Besides, pharmacists discover and develop new medicines for better and economic treatment of diseases and through pharmacovigilance programme keep watch on adverse drug reactions, drug-drug interactions, and drug-food and beverages interactions to safeguard public health from menace of modern medicines.
Patient compliance and prescription adherence are important parameters for success of therapy, which could be achieved by patient counseling by pharmacists to enhance prescription efficacy. Structured pharmaceutical care policy and practice guidelines are essential to accelerate therapeutic success. This could be achieved through organized pharmaceutical care services at Central, State and Local Self Government levels.
On this World Pharmacists Day, I advocate for policy to promote better health outcomes through organized pharmaceutical care across the community pharmacy and healthcare set ups so that every medicine that is administered to the Patients is the most safe, effective and economic one. Practice of pharmacotherapeutics, pharmacovigilance and pharmacoeconomics are crucial in building a healthy nation and reduce burden on financial resources. Let the pharmaceutical care policy embark on these and initiate new era of informed medication regimen in the best interests of the patients.
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