Tyrone Reid, Staff Reporter
THE PUBLIC health sector is suffering from an acute shortage of pharmacists. The severe dearth in the number of pharmacists has forced at least five Government-run pharmacies across the Corporate Area to shut down their operations.
"We can't operate them because we don't have the staff," said Jacqueline Goulbourne, parish manager at the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Health Office.
'VERY SHORT'
"We are very, very short on pharmacists. We don't have anything near cadre," she stressed.
Catherine Gregory, regional director for the South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA), which includes Kingston, St. Andrew, St. Catherine and St. Thomas, told The Gleaner that some St. Catherine-based pharmaceutical services have also been closed.
She revealed that the shortage of pharmacists in the different locales has affected the access to drugs and could result in fatalities.
The Ministry of Health and the regional authorities now have to recruit pharmacists from overseas as well as pre-package some drugs to ease the strain on the limited staff at the facilities.
Mrs. Gregory said SERHA is currently operating with only half the required complement of pharmacists.
UNATTRACTIVE SALARIES
Mrs. Goulbourne told The Gleaner the primary reason for the shortage was that salaries offered by the public sector are unattractive.
As a result, qualified pharmacists are all gravitating toward the private sector or to start their own businesses.
"It (salary) has been a point of contention that they can't pay their students' loan and people have to live," Mrs. Gregory added.
Mrs. Goulbourne said Kingston and St. Andrew alone have 48 health centres, although not all offer pharmaceutical services, and only three pharmacists. At certain locations pharmacy technicians, who must operate under the supervision of a pharmacist, handle the day-to-day operation, but the supervising pharmacist deals with the technical aspects.
PERENNIAL PROBLEM
The North East Regional Health Authority's (NERHA) jurisdiction which consists of Portland, St. Mary and Portland, is in dire need of 23 pharmacists and 19 pharmacy technicians.
Verona Hall, director of human resource management and industrial relations at NERHA, said the severe shortage has been a perennial problem.
Mrs. Hall said that although pharmacists have been recruited from Cuba, it was only a drop in the bucket. "It is still not stopping the gap, it is just assisting us."
In the interim, Mrs. Gregory said the Regional Health Authorities and the Ministry of Health are trying to remedy the situation through scholarships to aspiring pharmacists which would bond them to Government for at least three years.
SEVERE SHORTAGE
* NERHA
20 pharmacies
Nine pharmacists (Five Jamaicans and fourCubans)
17 pharmacy technicians (11 Jamaicans and six Cubans)
Needed: 23 pharmacists and 19 technicians
* Southern Regional Health Authority (SRHA)
(which includes Manchester, Clarendon and St. Elizabeth). Has only five pharmacists. Needed: At least another five.
* Kingston and St. Andrew
48 health centres
Three pharmacists
* SERHA
Needed: 50 per cent boost in quota
