‘We are more than pill pushers’
Pharmacists still not included in COVID-19 vaccination drive
Published:Sunday | November 21, 2021 | 12:14 AMErica Virtue - Senior Gleaner Writer
The Government is yet to incorporate pharmacists into its COVID-19 vaccination drive, months after sector players qualified to administer shots indicated their willingness to participate in the exercise to boost take-up of the jabs.
Since The Sunday Gleaner highlighted the matter a few months ago, there has been no movement on the offer. Instead, the Government has sought the use of the plants operated by pharmacists as vaccination sites, but the requirements are so onerous that many have declined.
“Still no pharmacists involved in the vaccination programme, and to the best of my knowledge, only Fontana Pharmacy is being used as a site for vaccinations,” Dr Winsome Christie, president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Jamaica, told The Sunday Gleaner recently.
She said that the pharmacists remain blocked by legislative hurdles, which they have been pleading with lawmakers to clear for almost a decade.
Christie said that recent dialogue has suggested that the Ministry of Health and Wellness is working to get pharmacists involved, and despite the snail’s pace of progress, she is hoping there will be a breakthrough soon before the island experiences its fourth COVID wave.
“I am not worried that it will take a long time because I have seen other legislation move swiftly,” said Christie. “But I want the nation to know that pharmacists are willing and ready. We have about 56 trained at the moment and most are in the private sector. The Government tends to work with those in the public sector.”
VANGUARDS OF HEALTHCARE
Audley Reid is a trained pharmacist and executive of pharmaceutical distributors R.A. Williams. He and his sister manage the company, which was founded by their mother.
Speaking with our news team on the eve of Pharmacy Week, which runs November 21 to 27, he expressed concern that pharmacists have not been given the space to assist in the COVID-19 fight.
“We see ourselves as not only pharmacists in the broader profession, but in the purpose to serve as healthcare providers. We are more than just pill pushers or pill counters. We are vanguards of healthcare, and we needed to have put on our thinking caps amid the crisis to see what actions we could have taken,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.
“We recognised that supply chains would be locked down and so we needed to act, through ingenuity and being decisive through decision-making. That’s how we acted, so we could provide the consistent supply of drugs that would be needed,” he explained.
Although not among those trained and certified to administer shots, he expressed interest in making the step.
“Whenever you have a public-health crisis like this, the Government must move quickly to mobilise all available options to them. The Disaster Risk Management Act was drafted and enacted in a short space of time, and one clause that could have been included under the health section was the authorisation for pharmacists to administer the vaccine,” he told The Sunday Gleaner, noting that pharmacists were trusted by the populace and are often the first point of call for individuals who are sick.
In 2016, Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton said that the ministry would be looking at the Pharmacy Act to see what amendments could be made to incorporate pharmacists more into healthcare delivery to reduce the burden on the public health sector.
The Public Health Act currently specifies who can administer vaccines in Jamaica and Section 14 notes that said the minister may make regulations for vaccinations and inoculations.
However, the pharmacists have not been the only personnel not fully engaged in the vaccination drive.
In October, Tufton said that more than 100 doctors in private practice would be engaged to administer COVID-19 jabs free of cost. Two weeks later, only about 15 were engaged across the island, with the ministry saying that it was hoping that more of the 150 doctors with whom they were having discussion would come on board.
“I am not sure exactly what is required. I just did not bother to go back because I opted initially to find out how I could help, but the requirements were too onerous, man, and when you are renting space for your own practice, you have to examine your investments,” said a doctor in private practice.
Among the requirements was that there be a refrigerator specifically designated for the storage of vaccines. The doctor said that was an investment he was prepared to make.
Up to Friday, Jamaica had recorded 90,630 cases of COVID-19 with 2,356 confirmed deaths. Some 341 other deaths are being investigated.
Some 1,071,648 COVID-19 jabs have been administered across the island, the health ministry’s vaccination tracker showed yesterday. Roughly 491,000 Jamaicans have been fully vaccinated.