Pharmacists Must Partner NHIS To Enhance Quality Health Care

Pharmacists must work with allied health care professionals in partnership with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to create innovative ways of financing health care. Dr Daniel Asare, Chief Executive Officer of the Cape Coast Regional Teaching Hospital, made the call on Tuesday at the opening of a three-day Pharmacy sub-sector Senior Managers Performance Review Meeting and Scientific Seminar in Cape Coast. The partnership, Dr Asare said, if well implemented, would reduce wastage in the system, stop the NHIS from collapsing, and also ensure quality health care delivery. The meeting is being attended by pharmacists from the various hospitals and health directorates nation-wide, representatives from the Pharmaceutical Council and Foods and Drug Authority. Under the theme, �Working Together towards Quality Pharmaceutical Care�, it would among others, review the performances of the pharmacists over the year and come out with pragmatic plans to address their challenges. Dr Asare pointed out that pharmacists were facing a lot of challenges, which include the delay by the NHIS to reimburse them. He said some schemes were in arrears of six to twelve months, which was not good enough for quality health care delivery. He, consequently, called for adequate resourcing of the scheme so as to stem the collapse of health care delivery. Mrs Martha Gyansa Lutterodt, Director of Pharmaceutical Services, said Pharmacists would continue to collaborate with other team members in the health care delivery system to ensure quality health care. She said it was time for pharmacists to manufacture drugs and medicines that would cure new diseases that were emerging on the continent. Mrs Gyansa-Lutterodt also advised them to do operational research work and endeavour to publish their works, which she said would introduce them to the global world. Mrs Edith Andrew-Annan, Director of Special Medicines in the Office of World Health Organization (WHO), underscored the important role pharmacists play in quality health delivery, and asked that them to be visible, responsible, accessible , competent and committed to confidentiality. Mrs Andrew-Annan expressed regret that pharmacists had allowed their work to be taken over by quacks and tasked them to work hard to get back their profession by providing effective medication therapy management systems, implement pharmaceutical management systems and ensure quality assurance. She said in the performance of their duties they should focus mainly on the client-patient systems and processes, measurement of medicines, teamwork and endeavour to create better outcomes. They should actively involve themselves in the Expanded Programme on Immunization since it dealt with the dispensing of medicines, she said. The participants would treat topics such as Anti-Microbial Resistance Activities, IT Solution to Stock Management and Supply Chain Report and Issues.