A Chief Pharmacist leads this arm. And two junior pharmacists support the head. This section is charged with the responsibility of procuring, storage and dispensing of drugs, counselling and education on drug usage to students, staff and general public. The section now carries out drug compounding which was stopped many years ago. However, making drugs available in respect to the demand has remained the biggest bane with so many consequences.
Out-Of-Stock Syndrome
The lack of drug constitutes a syndrome of OUT-OF-STOCK. It is a poor motivator that frustrates the patients, especially the students and the sickbay staff. The pharmacists are made redundant and demoralized. Many at times it has resulted to conflict with the patients and incomplete treatment.
Also because of OS, some patients may buy incomplete dose or make erratic purchases that may lead to drug resistance and treatment periods are unnecessarily prolonged and sometimes complicated. This is compounded by the issues of fake drugs. The attention of the unit on the lingering OS was drawn by the accreditation team of the Pharmacy Council Of Nigeria. Attending to this will surely improve the standard of care delivery.
The 2002 Visit By The Pharmacy Council
According to the accreditation team of the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria, the section needs up-lifting and the persisting out of stock syndrome has to stop. The council has insisted on implementing Drugs Revolving Fund scheme in financing the health care. This means full cost recovery of all the drugs served plus a margin of 10% to take care of running cost.
The concept of the scheme became necessary in Nigeria due to the persistent problem of the out of stock syndrome. The success of any Health Care Delivery System depends on adequate provision of Essential Drugs for the treatment and prevention of ailments/diseases that are prevalent in the majority of the community. Earlier effort to implement DRF was opposed by the Unions, this being a staff and student’s facility.
Pharmaceutical Council Recommendation/Requirements:
- Counselling Room
- Functional Air conditioner for drug store
- Drug Information unit
- Call duty room
- Computers and Internet facilities
- Pharmacy unit library
- Office for the pharmacist
- Functional refrigerators
- Reference books and current pharmaceutical journals.
Attempt To Establish Drugs Revolving Scheme
There were previous attempts to establish Drug Revolving Scheme but was rejected by the University community.
UHS Drugs Policy
UHS Drugs policy is guided by National essential drug formulary, the disease prevalence and seasonality and the past moving drugs best on prescription pattern. It also takes recognition of services and the University population estimated to be in excess of 100,000 with 35000 student population. 200- 300 new patients (all clinics combined) are seen daily with 60-70% Students. We expect to see more than this when services improve.)
The availability of drugs is usually limited by fund and market forces.
Activities Of Pharmacy Section
Our services to the community in the unit have improved greatly during the period under review. This is largely due to more awareness and enlightenment by the University Health Services in general to the community. Evidence of this is the marked improvement on the number of prescriptions attended to as shown below. With increased allocation to the unit there is improvement in our stock greatly and students now have good story to tell about the unit.
The compounding of extramporaneous properties is still on and some gallenicals were bought for continuity.
Some drugs were included in the University Health services drug list (hospital formulary) ranging from analgesics, antisuace, antipsychistics, and new national policy on drugs on malaria treatments.
Also during the year, some medical/clinical meetings were organized and moderated/coordinated by this unit for University Health Services through medical representatives of pharmaceutical companies. On staff training and improvement, the unit benefited immensely. The three pharmacist attended the mandatory continue professional development (MCPD) during the year at different times.
The three pharmacists also took part in the special workshop on Internet organized by the University Librarian at Kashim Ibrahim Library.
One of the pharmacy assistants was also sponsored by the University management to School of Health Technology, Kaduna for her pharmacy technician training programme. She has now qualified to be a pharmacy Technician. Thanks to the management for the sponsorship.
A pharmacist was nominated as a member of University Health Services Subcommittee on HIV/AIDS and she also attended the sensitization workshop on HIV in June 2005.
A workshop jointly organized by the University and UNICEF Nigeria on rights of women and children was also attended by one of the pharmacists. Also a 3-day workshop to train health workers in Kaduna state was attended by a pharmacist. This was organized by UNICEF also and Federal Ministry of Health on Roll back Malaria between 31st August, and 2nd September, 2005.
Pharmacist (Mrs) M. A. Ibrahim was also sponsored to a National Twin workshop in Ibadan in September, 2005 where she was trained on drug revolving fund (DRF) and unit dose dispensing system (UDDS).
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