#zimbabwe Serious pharmacists shortage hits Zim ift.tt/10H2k3K Leonard Ncube Victoria Falls Reporter ZIMBABWE has about 600 registered pharmacists, far below World Health Organisation (WHO) requirements for a healthy nation, an official has said. About 250 pharmacists from private and public health institutions met in Victoria Falls for the two-day Pharmaceutical Society of Zimbabwe (PSZ) indaba which started on Friday. PSZ president Dothan Moyo told Chronicle on the sidelines of the annual conference that one pharmacist was required to serve 2,000 people according to WHO regulations which Zimbabwe was failing to meet. “WHO has a specific ratio which we are failing to meet as a country where one pharmacist should serve 2,000 people. There are about 600 registered pharmacists in the country, 380 of whom are members of PSZ while others are non-members,” said Moyo. He said most of the registered pharmacists were in the private sector and he believed there was room to increase the number in public health institutions. PSZ members are drawn from private and public health institutions and membership is voluntary. The sixth edition of the conference, which ended on Saturday, ran under the theme “Ensuring access to health, exploring our impact or providing medicines, care and information.” Moyo said the shortage of pharmacists which was affecting health delivery was the result of a shortage of training facilities and brain drain. Pharmacists are trained at the University of Zimbabwe and Harare Institute of Technology (HIT) while pharmacy technicians are trained at Harare Polytechnic and within the Ministry of Health and Child Care. “We need to train more personnel and retain the ones that graduate. The training school was opened in 1974 but graduates do not stay which is why we need to have some interventions to make sure we retain them,” he said. The delegates kicked off the conference with a belated commemoration of World Pharmacy Day, which falls on September 26 each year. They educated members of the public on non-communicable diseases. The delegates donated medicines whose value was not disclosed, to Victoria Falls Hospital. Individual pharmacies contributed the donation. Moyo said the contribution was part of their social responsibility to provide medicines, care and medicinal information to the public. ift.tt/eA8V8J
Posted on: Tue, 07 Oct 2014 00:11:22 +0000