Give Me Our Dispensing Rights And I Will Shut Up
I did not write this. Someone wrote this to The Star and I got it from the Malaysian Pharmaceutical Society website. My opinion is below this article.
It is really disheartening to learn that pharmacists working in government hospitals will have their monthly critical allowance reduced by RM650, leaving only a small sum of RM100 if the Ministry of Health introduces this ruling soon.
It is really disheartening to learn that pharmacists working in government hospitals will have their monthly critical allowance reduced by RM650, leaving only a small sum of RM100 if the Ministry of Health introduces this ruling soon.
If they have this intention, I do not understand why the reduction of the allowance applies only to government pharmacists and not other government servants as well. Doctors and nurses are said to be unaffected.
Can someone from the Health Ministry explain the logic behind this cost-cutting exercise?
On one hand, the prime minister has reduced income tax by 1% for the higher income group in the 10th Malaysian Budget but on the other hand the Government tries to collect back the money from a small population of government pharmacists.
This is unfair treatment and does not serve any purpose.
At the moment, graduate pharmacists have to be trained in government hospitals for one year and forced to work for another three years before they can opt for greener pastures outside. Their salary is already low when compared with the private sector.
Pharmacists are also subjected to on-call and overtime work like doctors, but they are not allowed to claim on-call allowances like doctors.
Pharmacists need their own transport to go to work in the wee hours of the night when they are on-call. The critical allowance is just enough for them to foot the car maintenance and petrol bill.
Also, critical allowance is crucial as they are among critical front-liners exposing themselves to health hazards and risks when dispensing drugs to patients at the counters.
Then what about the cytotoxic department? Every day, pharmacists enter the clean room and expose themselves to the aerosol of cancer drugs (a single drop of cytotoxic drug can cause necrosis or mutation).
In the methadone department, pharmacists are also at risk. They have to park their cars far away from the department to avoid their cars being vandalised. There are threat cases as well when pharmacists meet the addicts outside.
Every day, pharmacists have to go in and out of wards to counsel patients with infectious diseases, not to mention the current H1N1 pandemic with many pharmacists reportedly suspected of being infected.
The RM750 critical allowance seems insignificant and insufficient when personal safety and health are in jeopardy.
The above are just the tip of the iceberg. I urge the Ministry Of Health to reconsider the allowance reduction.
After going for hospital attachments, I have to say that pharmacists are the people behind the scenes. Every great movie there's a great director, great cameraman, great lighting and sound crew, great technicians etc. Yes, actors and actresses are normally the ones who get the Oscars and the Emmys but without the people behind to capture their best moments and edit their silly mistakes/flaws they wouldn't make it either. It's a two-way thing really. And the Malaysian government have been hyping the status of a doctor until the public are being deceived of the importance of a pharmacist nor even their job as a pharmacist, besides opening up branches and listening to them whine about the constant price increase of products which have nothing to do with us.
Go ahead and ask the patients in hospitals if the doctors are even doing their job properly. They think so highly of themselves, which makes me sick. The way they talk was as if the patient is stupid and cannot understand anything. But then again, doctors here refer to those who serve in the government sector. In the private sector, the more money you have the more intelligent you are so I rest my case.
Who's going to reconstitute the cytotoxic drug for chemotherapy use in cancer patients? Who's going to do the therapeutic drug monitoring for patients who're on narrow therapeutic window drugs like Phenytoin or Warfarin? Warfarin toxicity may cause unnecessary bleeding with high possibility of death. Are you expecting the doctors to do the math? Because they know shit about them. All they know is to memorize anatomy, physiology, and diseases according to their signs and symptoms. Doctors and their ego is a whole new chapter altogether. Heard of the story where a specialist was being corrected by a pharmacist who's doing her compulsory government service? This specialist (some Dato') thanked her. And have u heard of doctors who turn a blind eye and insist they're correct even though proven wrong by pharmacists and with evidence? Oh yes. Doctors and their ego. Many times my classmates went through the patient's BHT(Bed Head Ticket - the ones where doctors in movies always flip through upon seeing the patients) and the patients were given the wrong diagnoses.
Doctors will never qualify as kidnappers. You know why? Their handwriting are so bad that the ransom letter cannot be read. Even the nurses cannot read them. So why do they even bother scribbling? Waste of resources. Wearing their white coats to the canteen, the washroom, the parking lot, and back to the canteen, washroom, and then to the ward. Doctors wear white coats just to give an impression that they are clean. Take a closer look at their ties, then you'll know what you're dealing with. Damn these doctors. They might be the biggest culprit for causing patients to have HAP(Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia).
Why is it so hard to give us pharmacist our dispensing rights? Why do doctors need to dispense? It's not even in their expertise. Companies like Pfizer give their products to doctors at a cheaper price so that they are willing to hawk the Pfizer products and at the same time earn even more(by getting it cheaper from Pfizer and selling it at a higher price compared to pharmacies). Doctors can charge for consultation fee meaning the more you ask, the higher fees you have to pay. Ridiculous. Doctos know nuts about drugs. They only know which one can earn more. Their job is to diagnose. Our job is to dispense. Is that so hard to understand, MOH? Excuses such as "not enough pharmacist to accommodate the public" is total bullshit! We are the drug experts. Doctors are the disease people(literally). Please educate the public instead of blindly leading them to believe that doctors are Gods. It is only the government to blame when the public have this mindset, no one else. And now suppressing the pharmacists isn't going to help in any way, unless what the government wants is riot and chaos. Imagine all the chemo patients waiting and TDM patients bleeding, and all the pneumonia the doctors are causing. :D Great.
After going for hospital attachments, I have to say that pharmacists are the people behind the scenes. Every great movie there's a great director, great cameraman, great lighting and sound crew, great technicians etc. Yes, actors and actresses are normally the ones who get the Oscars and the Emmys but without the people behind to capture their best moments and edit their silly mistakes/flaws they wouldn't make it either. It's a two-way thing really. And the Malaysian government have been hyping the status of a doctor until the public are being deceived of the importance of a pharmacist nor even their job as a pharmacist, besides opening up branches and listening to them whine about the constant price increase of products which have nothing to do with us.
Go ahead and ask the patients in hospitals if the doctors are even doing their job properly. They think so highly of themselves, which makes me sick. The way they talk was as if the patient is stupid and cannot understand anything. But then again, doctors here refer to those who serve in the government sector. In the private sector, the more money you have the more intelligent you are so I rest my case.
Who's going to reconstitute the cytotoxic drug for chemotherapy use in cancer patients? Who's going to do the therapeutic drug monitoring for patients who're on narrow therapeutic window drugs like Phenytoin or Warfarin? Warfarin toxicity may cause unnecessary bleeding with high possibility of death. Are you expecting the doctors to do the math? Because they know shit about them. All they know is to memorize anatomy, physiology, and diseases according to their signs and symptoms. Doctors and their ego is a whole new chapter altogether. Heard of the story where a specialist was being corrected by a pharmacist who's doing her compulsory government service? This specialist (some Dato') thanked her. And have u heard of doctors who turn a blind eye and insist they're correct even though proven wrong by pharmacists and with evidence? Oh yes. Doctors and their ego. Many times my classmates went through the patient's BHT(Bed Head Ticket - the ones where doctors in movies always flip through upon seeing the patients) and the patients were given the wrong diagnoses.
Doctors will never qualify as kidnappers. You know why? Their handwriting are so bad that the ransom letter cannot be read. Even the nurses cannot read them. So why do they even bother scribbling? Waste of resources. Wearing their white coats to the canteen, the washroom, the parking lot, and back to the canteen, washroom, and then to the ward. Doctors wear white coats just to give an impression that they are clean. Take a closer look at their ties, then you'll know what you're dealing with. Damn these doctors. They might be the biggest culprit for causing patients to have HAP(Hospital-Acquired Pneumonia).
Why is it so hard to give us pharmacist our dispensing rights? Why do doctors need to dispense? It's not even in their expertise. Companies like Pfizer give their products to doctors at a cheaper price so that they are willing to hawk the Pfizer products and at the same time earn even more(by getting it cheaper from Pfizer and selling it at a higher price compared to pharmacies). Doctors can charge for consultation fee meaning the more you ask, the higher fees you have to pay. Ridiculous. Doctos know nuts about drugs. They only know which one can earn more. Their job is to diagnose. Our job is to dispense. Is that so hard to understand, MOH? Excuses such as "not enough pharmacist to accommodate the public" is total bullshit! We are the drug experts. Doctors are the disease people(literally). Please educate the public instead of blindly leading them to believe that doctors are Gods. It is only the government to blame when the public have this mindset, no one else. And now suppressing the pharmacists isn't going to help in any way, unless what the government wants is riot and chaos. Imagine all the chemo patients waiting and TDM patients bleeding, and all the pneumonia the doctors are causing. :D Great.
