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The High Cost of Having Too Few Pharmacists in SA

On By ModernMedia
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

By Chris Bateman

It’s acknowledged in key policy documents, well known at the coalface and much ventilated in the media: South Africa’s public healthcare system has too few healthcare workers, especially medical doctors, certain specialists, and theatre nurses. Less recognised however is the shortage of public sector pharmacists. We lift the lid on this until now largely hidden problem – and its impact.

There are too few public sector pharmacy posts across South Africa to deliver a comprehensive service, with no clear staffing norms, and an uneven distribution of pharmacists, especially in rural districts. This contributes in part to medicine stockouts and the emergence of deadly hospital-acquired drug-resistant infections.

This is according to Dr Andy Gray, a senior lecturer in the Division of Pharmacology at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s School of Health Sciences and co-head of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Pharmaceutical Policy and Evidence Based Practice. His views are echoed by at least two other key local stakeholder organisations.

Flagging the alarming rise in resistance to antimicrobials – an urgent global public health threat – driven by the misuse of antibiotics in hospitals and ambulatory care, Gray told Spotlight that there are not enough pharmacists to intervene if they see inappropriate use of medicines.

“This just continues without any effort to fix it. Inadequately trained and understaffed prescribers are working under immense stress, so they are prone to use the wrong medicines at the wrong time with the wrong doses,” he said. “There are also very few microbiologists and certainly not enough pharmacists at the bedside. They’re not doing what’s necessary to ensure the proper use of medicines – for example, better control over antimicrobials.”

The excessive dependence on antibiotics has resulted in the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, commonly known as superbugs. This is called bacterial resistance or antibiotic resistance. Some bacteria are now resistant to even the most powerful antibiotics available.

South Africa has been ranked 67th out of 204 countries for deaths – adjusted by age per 100 000 people – linked to antimicrobial resistance. It has been estimated that around 9 500 deaths in the country in 2019 were directly caused by antimicrobial resistance, while 39 000 deaths were possibly related to resistant infections.

The National Department of Health warned in a background document that rising antimicrobial resistance and the slow-down of new antibiotics could make it impossible to treat common infections effectively. This could also lead to an increase in the cost of healthcare because of the need for more expensive 2nd or 3rd line antimicrobial agents, as well as a reduced quality of life.

Low numbers

Gray said that while not matching the paucity of public sector doctors and nurses, pharmacists stand at 24% of the staffing levels calculated as necessary to deliver a comprehensive service.

“We need just over 50 pharmacists per 100 000 uninsured population as a target, but we’re sitting at around 12,” he said.

Gray said the SA Pharmacy Council (SAPC) has no data on the total number of pharmacists actually working in the country, or the number working in particular settings. A SAPC spokesperson said they had only provincial statistics, but could not track pharmacist movements.

“You can’t use their database to find out how many pharmacists are working where. The Health Systems Trust SA Health Review Indicator chapter has figures of public sector pharmacists per province and per 100 000 uninsured population,” Gray pointed out.

As at February 2024, there were 16 856 pharmacists registered in South Africa, (working and not working), excluding the 971 community service pharmacists.

The 5 958 pharmacists employed in the public sector represents the full complement of funded posts, but it is well below the number needed – and varies dramatically between provinces. While almost all funded posts are filled, Gray said the number of posts is less than needed to deliver a comprehensive, quality service.

Taken across South Africa’s population of around 62 million, there are around 28 registered pharmacists (working or not working), per 100 000 people (insured and uninsured). According to data from 2016, the mean global ratio stands at 73 per 100 000.

“We’re better than many other African countries, but that’s cold comfort,” said Gray.

Increases spread unevenly

There are some positives. The number of pharmacists in the public sector has grown since 2009, rising from five to 12 per 100 000 uninsured people by 2023. However, the ratio varies markedly by district – for example: from 15 in the best-served Western Cape district to a mere three in the poorest served Northern Cape district.

Gray said the more rural districts suffer the most when it comes to understaffing of pharmacists and this contributes to medicine stockouts. While the causes of medicine stockouts are complex, one of the major contributors is the refusal of suppliers to deliver any more stock until accounts are paid.

Understaffing of pharmacists often results in nurses managing patients without any pharmaceutical oversight, Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa Executive Director, Refiloe Mogale, told Spotlight. She associates such task-shifting with medicine misuse and inappropriate prescribing, noting that while it’s a vital strategy in budget-tight environments, medication errors are on the rise. This, she argues, could be solved by ensuring appropriate pharmaceutical personnel are placed to support primary healthcare facilities – such as pharmacist assistants.

“A Primary Care Drug Therapy (PCDT) trained pharmacist can diagnose, treat, and dispense medications. So, this is not as much about task-shifting as about the pharmacist providing comprehensive care. These PCDT pharmacists can do family planning, screening for diabetes, hypertension, and other clinical tasks that take the burden off doctors. We need more of them,” she said.

‘No clear staffing norm’

Addressing the human resources quandary, Gray said the core problem had always been that the number of pharmacist posts per hospital or clinic were not evenly distributed. “There’s been no clear staffing norm. The old ‘homeland’ hospitals are likely to be under resourced with pharmacists and pharmacists’ assistants. Posts are poorly distributed and by global standards, we’re nowhere near where we should be,” he said.

The National Department of Health’s most senior pharmacy official Khadija Jamaloodien agreed that pharmacy posts should be distributed better. But she said work protocols dictate that state pharmacists must visit each clinic in their district at least once per month. She said there are 3 000 primary healthcare facilities in the country and 6 000 (albeit maldistributed) public sector pharmacists.

Nhlanhla Mafarafara, President of the SA Association of Hospital and Institutional Pharmacists, told Spotlight too many of the almost 6 000 pharmacists in the public sector are doing stock management, dispensing, administration and management work in hospitals and pharmaceutical depots. He says the numbers do not necessarily reflect pharmacists in clinical or patient facing areas.

“The reality is that pharmacists are restricted to trying to get drug stock in and out,” Gray observed.

However, the lack of pharmacists and pharmacist assistants at clinics and hospitals means timely and/or knowledgeable ordering often results in shortages of essential medicines, something all experts interviewed for this article agreed on.

Mafarafara said that by defining what services a pharmacist should render and what’s needed to enable a quality service, more realistic staffing numbers could be reached. Pharmacies are central points in all hospitals, with closure for even an hour crippling a hospital. Thus, adequate staffing is critical to ensure uninterrupted access to good quality pharmaceutical care.

South Africa, Mafarafara added, was far behind many other countries in the effective use of pharmacists’ clinical expertise in leading evidence-based care in hospitals. “I’d even go so far as to say doctors should be stopped from dispensing in favour of pharmacists to improve quality of patient care,” he said.

‘If you don’t have a pharmacist, nothing gets done properly’

Jamaloodien said the cost of having too few pharmacists is more far-reaching than just antimicrobial resistance. “You can have stock outs because there’s nobody to manage the supply chain. In my experience, if you don’t have a pharmacist, nothing gets done properly,” she said.

Her solutions? Compliance with the “comprehensive and robust” evidence-based standard treatment guidelines, access to an updated and well-maintained cell phone-based application that gives everybody access to the latest information and medicine changes – and more attendance by all healthcare professionals of webinars held after every medicine’s committee meeting, plus clinicians regularly reading drug update bulletins to keep up with new medicines.

Republished from Spotlight under a Creative Commons licence.

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Analysis: Where We Are with NIMART 13 Years Later

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Hush Naidoo Jade Photography on Unsplash

By Tiyese Jeranji for Spotlight

Like many countries, South Africa has a shortage of healthcare workers – particularly of doctors. One response to such shortages is task-shifting – in short, to let doctors focus on the things only they can do, and to shift some other less specialised tasks to other healthcare workers like nurses or pharmacists.

Task-shifting can take many forms. Earlier this year Spotlight reported on a court case that gave the green light to specially trained pharmacists to dispense antiretroviral treatment without a script (the judgement is being appealed). Similarly taking pressure off public sector clinics, the Department of Health has for several years now allowed some people to pick up their medicines at participating private sector pharmacies or other pickup points. Less well implemented, was the introduction of clinical associates in 2008 as a new type of mid-level healthcare worker that can take some of the pressure off of doctors and stand-in for them in some situations.

Probably the most impactful example of task-shifting in South Africa, however, was the introduction of Nurse Initiated and Managed Antiretroviral treatment (NIMART) in 2010.

What is NIMART?

Dr Silingene Ngcobo, a lecturer at the School of Nursing and Public Health at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a Board Member of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, says NIMART is a clinical management program for people living with HIV which is driven by registered nurses. This means that registered nurses can independently manage a person living with HIV, starting from screening and diagnosis, all the way to treating, and monitoring throughout the HIV care continuum in the absence of a medical doctor.

As explained by Mmotsi Moloi, Training Programme Manager at the Aurum Institute (an NGO), prior to the introduction of NIMART in 2010 only doctors were authorised to prescribe antiretroviral therapy.

The rollout of antiretrovirals in South Africa technically started in 2004, but it only gathered momentum after the end of state-backed AIDS denialism in 2008. It soon after became clear that South Africa would not have enough doctors to handle the demand for HIV treatment and nurses would have to be roped in.

“The waiting lists became long, and the doctors could not meet the increasing demand of clients in need of antiretroviral treatment, this led to the death of clients while awaiting to be initiated,” says Moloi. “There was an urgent need to remedy the situation which was to decentralise management of HIV to Primary health care facilities and professional nurses to be trained and authorised to manage HIV infected clients.”

Ngcobo says nurses are often the only healthcare providers available to provide HIV prevention, care, and treatment services. She says the South African healthcare delivery system approach has changed from hospital-centred care to promotion of health and prevention of disease through primary healthcare and the introduction of NIMART fits this shift.

Hard to quantify

According to estimates from Thembisa, the leading mathematical model of HIV in the country, the number of people taking HIV treatment in South Africa increased from 1.2 million in 2010 to 5.7 million in 2022. How big a part NIMART played in this remarkable scale-up of treatment is hard to quantify, but that it played a pivotal role seems clear.

A review study published in 2021 that looked back at 10 years of NIMART in South Africa, found that adequate NIMART training “results in improved knowledge of HIV management, greater confidence and clinical competence, particularly if accompanied by mentoring”.

The review summarised results from several smaller studies conducted in different provinces on NIMART – which show, on a small scale at least, what potential impact NIMART has had. Among other things, the training of nurses to initiate and manage HIV treatment led to feelings of empowerment, and when coupled with appropriate training and support can “lead to increased quality of patient care, confidence and professional development”.

Studies conducted in Johannesburg cited by the review found that NIMART training increased access to HIV treatment, reduced workloads at referral facilities, and reduced referrals to tertiary hospitals. Nurses also saw an “improvement in the quality of life of their patients and the retention of patients in care, which they felt reflected the success of NIMART”.

When asked how many NIMART-qualified nurses we have in the country, Foster Mohale, spokesperson for the National Department of Health, says he can’t provide an exact number since they no longer collect data on NIMART since it has been incorporated in broader HIV training. He also says that provinces are the custodians of data for all trained healthcare workers and points out that the numbers change all the time due to attrition.

What NIMART nurses do

Ngcobo says NIMART nurses assess and screen people living with HIV for treatment eligibility, initiate antiretroviral therapy, provide adherence counselling and monitoring, screen for opportunistic infections, offer various preventative therapies, psychological support, as well as appropriate referrals to other members of the disciplinary team, and oversee repeat visits throughout the healthcare user’s life while managing any other health condition that the person might have.

Nurses also have to support people with tuberculosis and non-communicable diseases (such as diabetes and hypertension) to take treatment as prescribed.

“For effective management of other diseases, NIMART nurses should actually work with all other conditions because a person living with HIV still can gets various other conditions which still need to be managed. Therefore, the role of [the] NIMART nurse is to wholistically manage the patient and provide all the necessary healthcare services that the healthcare user in front of them will be requiring,” says Ngcobo.

Training requirements

The NIMART programme has changed somewhat since its launch back in 2010. Mohale says the programme now also covers the majority of healthcare professionals like medical doctors, pharmacists, registered or professional nurses, and other healthcare professionals who are authorised by their statutory bodies to assess, diagnose, prescribe, and dispense medications. He says in 2017 NIMART was changed to “Basic HIV for Health Care Professionals”, but the name NIMART is still in wide use.

The essence of the programme however remains that a professional nurse, or other qualifying healthcare professional, must complete special training (see this online course for example) before they are authorised to prescribe HIV treatment and manage the treatment and care of people living with HIV. Training typically requires both an exam and some practical work, ideally with the support of a mentor.

All prescribing by nurses in the public sector relies on section 56(6) of the Nursing Act, which allows an exception to the Medicines Act and other health-related laws, explains Andy Gray, Senior Lecturer  in pharmaceutical sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. “They therefore do not need section 22A(15) permits or section 22C(1)(a) dispensing licences in terms of the Medicines Act,” he says.

The legalities of how nurse prescribing works in South Africa is set out in a 2016 policy document issued by the National Department of Health. Amongst others, the document states that, “a nurse may only perform the functions authorised by Section 56(6) in public sector facilities in the district or municipality where the authorisation was granted to him/her”. In other words, nurses who move to jobs at other facilities or in other districts will often require new authorisation before they may prescribe medicines such as antiretrovirals.

Some concerns

But there are signs that training and mentorship is not functioning optimally across the board.

“There is non-standardised training and inadequate mentoring as the country doesn’t have enough trainers,” says Mohale. “There are human resource constraints for both trainers and nurses to be trained. Some districts rely on their district support partners to carry out trainings on their behalf.”

“Staff shortage from the facilities also leads to some nurses not being able to be trained due to demand for other health services at their service delivery points. Some challenges include failure to identify and manage drug-drug and drug-food interactions which are important in making sure that the patients are suppressing their viral loads,” he adds.

Mohale’s comments echo several barriers to the success of NIMART that were identified in the 2021 review study, including: “non-standardised training, inadequate mentoring, human resource constraints, health system challenges, lack of support and empowerment, and challenges with legislation, policy and guidelines”.

Republished from Spotlight under a Creative Commons licence.

Source: Spotlight

Categories : Healthcare Politics and Regulations HIVTags : 1 Comment

In-depth: The Court Ruling that Gives Qualifying Pharmacists the Green Light to Provide HIV and TB Meds Without a Script

On By ModernMedia
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

By Catherine Tomlinson for Spotlight

Specially trained and accredited pharmacists in South Africa will now be allowed to provide people with medicines to prevent HIV and tuberculosis (TB) and to treat uncomplicated HIV without a doctor’s script. This is because the North Gauteng High Court this week ruled against an application by the IPA Foundation (an association of private doctors) attempting to block the implementation of Pharmacist-Initiated Management of Antiretroviral Therapy (PIMART).

PIMART involves the introduction of a legislative framework, a specialised training course, and an accreditation process to allow pharmacists to supply HIV and TB medicines to people visiting pharmacies, under certain conditions, without a doctor’s script.

The ruling in the case of IPA Foundation versus the South African Pharmacy Council (SAPC) was handed down by Judge Elmarie van der Schyff on 14 August 2023 – almost two years to the day exactly after legislation introducing PIMART was published by the SAPC. Board Notice 101 of 2021 was published on 13 August 2021 (at the time, Spotlight published an in-depth article on the case for PIMART).

While PIMART has been delayed for two years by the IPA Foundation’s legal challenge, Judge van der Schyff’s ruling now clears the way for the SAPC to proceed with its implementation.

Steve Letsike, Chair of the SAPC’s Health Committee and PIMART Task Team, said in a media conference on Thursday that the IPA Foundation has until 8 September to appeal the High Court’s decision. Speaking at the same media conference, Mogologolo Phasha, President of the SAPC, indicated that if the IPA Foundation appeals the ruling, the SAPC will continue to fight to preserve the initiative in higher courts.

Spotlight asked the IPA Foundation whether they plan to appeal the decision, but no response was received by time of publication.

The background

The introduction of PIMART was proposed by the SAPC in 2018 in response to a request from the National Department of Health for the SAPC to develop an intervention to enable pharmacists to help get HIV prevention treatment to more people quicker.

Pharmacists trained and accredited under the PIMART initiative will be able to provide preventative therapy for HIV (both post-exposure and pre-exposure prophylaxis – PEP and PrEP), TB preventive therapy, and first-line antiretroviral treatment for uncomplicated HIV.

According to Phasha, around 900 pharmacists, or 5% of pharmacists on the register have already undertaken specialised, supplementary training to enable them to provide PIMART services. He noted, however, that before trained pharmacists would be able to start providing PIMART services they would need to receive accreditation in the form of a permit granted by the National Department of Health under Section 22(A)15 of the Medicines and Related Substances Act.

The court’s response to the IPA Foundation’s arguments

In February 2022, the IPA Foundation filed an affidavit with the North Gauteng High Court seeking review and dismissal of the SAPC’s decision to implement PIMART and related legislation.

In its affidavit, the IPA Foundation argued that the provision of PIMART services falls within the domain of medical doctors and that pharmacists do not have the required training and competencies to provide these services. The IPA Foundation further argued that the SAPC does not have the legislative mandate to introduce PIMART, that the SAPC’s reasons for implementing PIMART were not adequately explained, and that the SAPC’s procedures for implementing PIMART were not procedurally fair and did not provide adequate opportunity for interested parties to comment.

The IPA Foundation warned of a “slippery slope” resulting from PIMART’s introduction, adding “this objection essentially warns of the opening of the floodgates or perhaps an anticipated negative precedent setting occurrence relevant to the provision of medication… without prescription”.

In her ruling, Judge van der Schyff noted that while tension between healthcare cadres regarding their scopes of practice is common, the World Health Organization calls for “a collaborative approach to primary healthcare issues and the embracing of task-shifting”.

She added that “competition, per se, does not limit or curtail the rights of medical practitioners to continue providing the services that they currently provide,” further stating that “even if the assumed competition is regarded to affect family practitioner’s rights adversely, the alleged adverse effect it holds for medical practitioners has to be considered against the need to expand primary healthcare services aimed at preventing and treating HIV”.

Judge van der Schyff dismissed the IPA Foundation’s argument that the SAPC is not mandated to introduce PIMART, stating that “the SAPC is empowered to prescribe the scope of practice of the various categories of persons registered in terms of the Pharmacy Act”. She added, “The development and implementation of PIMART, does not expand the existing scope of practice of pharmacists that generically provides for PIT [pharmacist-initiated therapy] and PCDT [primary care drug therapy]. It introduced a specialised category of PIT and PCDT focused on preventing and treating HIV.”

Judge van der Schyff also rejected the IPA Foundation’s arguments that PIMART’s introduction was procedurally unfair and the decision for its implementation was not properly explained, arbitrary, or capricious. She says that “through its collaboration with the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, whose members include numerous medical doctors, the development of PIMART was given great exposure”.

“The need to widen access to first-line ART [antiretroviral therapy] and TPT [TB preventative therapy] on a community level is not a figment of SAPC’s imagination, but a dire need that is also evinced in other countries,” held van der Schyff.

Finally, Judge van der Schyff rejected the argument that pharmacists are not adequately trained to provide PIMART services, stating, “The PIMART training course was developed to ensure that pharmacists who successfully completed the training would be ‘suitably qualified to safely and effectively assist in providing ART’.” She adds that the PIMART training course was “developed by suitably qualified experts in the field, which experts include medical practitioners”.

The ruling was welcomed by the SAPC and several HIV groups.

“The superior court yesterday (Wednesday) confirmed what has been our long-held view that PIMART is a necessary and competently designed intervention programme to support South Africa’s efforts in providing access to patients diagnosed with HIV and AIDS,” said Phasha. “The programme may also arrest and lower the ballooning HIV budget, which is nearly half the national health budget, by reducing the rate of new infections.”

Nelson Dlamini, Head of Communications at the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC), told Spotlight that SANAC welcomes the court ruling.

“The magnitude of South Africa’s HIV burden requires innovative ways of accessing HIV treatment, care, and support. PIMART is one such approach that will improve access to antiretroviral therapy for people living with HIV and those requiring PEP & PrEP,” said Dlamini.

Sibongile Tshabalala, Chairperson of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), said the organisation also welcomes the ruling. “The challenges that we are facing in the country include one of people queuing for a long time in facilities… and also the attitude of nurses in facilities which chases away so many people from facilities. We also have the issue of key populations that are not comfortable to go in public health facilities to access medication… so if a pharmacist is able to issue and prescribe ARVs and TB medication it will mean that we will be able to cover a lot of people.”

*NOTE: A representative of the TAC is quoted in this article. Spotlight is published by SECTION27 and the TAC, but is editorially independent – an independence that the editors guard jealously. Spotlight is a member of the South African Press Council.

Republished from Spotlight under a Creative Commons Licence.

Source: Spotlight

Categories : Healthcare Politics and Regulations HIVTags :

Court Ruling Means that Pharmacists can Prescribe to People with HIV

On By ModernMedia
Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán: https://www.pexels.com/photo/syringe-and-pills-on-blue-background-3936368/

The South African Pharmacy Council (SAPC) has been given judicial go-ahead to introduce its Pharmacy-Initiated Management of Antiretroviral Treatment (PIMART) initiative, which will allow specially trained pharmacists to manage and prescribe medicine to patients with HIV and tuberculosis.

Pretoria High Court Judge Elmarie van der Schyff has dismissed an application brought by a doctors’ organisation – the IPA Foundation – for the setting aside of the programme.

She said the pilot project had emphasised the value of the initiative, which was in line with the World Health Organisation’s vision to promote widely accessible primary health care.

“The untapped value of pharmacists in fighting HIV was also emphasised by the efficient role pharmacies played in meeting health care needs and providing health care services during the Covid-19 pandemic,” she said.

“The need to widen access to first line ART and TPT therapy on a community level is not a figment of SAPC’s imagination but a dire need that is also evinced in other countries.”

Read the judgment here

The IPA Foundation approached the court, under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA), seeking to review and set aside the SAPC’s decision to implement PIMART.

IPA claimed that the SAPC had failed to give interested parties an adequate opportunity to comment before the initiative was implemented. It further contended that PIMART unjustifiably encroached on the domain of medical practitioners and was in conflict with legislation.

IPA also accused SAPC of misleading the Director-General of Health, claiming there had been extensive consultation with stakeholders, which led to the approval and issuing of permits for the initiative.

The SAPC said the application should be dismissed. It said pharmacy-provided primary healthcare was a well known and functional concept in South Africa and PIMART was simply a “widening of this”.

Referring to the background and context, Judge van der Schyff said, in line with WHO recommendations that all people living with HIV must be provided with ART, the department of health had requested the SAPC to consider and implement interventions that would ensure that patients had increased access to medicines.

This led to the SAPC requesting the Director-General in August 2018 to consider issuing permits to pharmacists who had completed supplementary training, to manage patients and to dispense medication under PIMART.

In March 2021, the SAPC published a notice for public comment regarding the adoption of PIMART. The first permits were issued in August that year.

However, IPA submitted objections outside of the timeline for comments. It said this was because its members were struggling with another wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Pharmacists and doctors operate in distinct and separate professional domains, the boundaries of which are closely guarded and some tension exists … IPA’s objection to PIMART seems to be rooted, partially at least, in this professional tension.

“This is evidenced by its fear that the decision to implement PIMART might ‘open the floodgates’ and ‘pave the way for pharmacists to ultimately treat and prescribe other schedule 4 drugs in respect of acute illnesses’,” the Judge said.

She noted, however, that the National Drugs Policy, in line with WHO guidelines, promoted “task shifting” to advance access to medicine and that at primary level, prescribing should be competency based, not occupation based.

Any alleged adverse effect that PIMART held for a medical practitioner had to be considered against the need to expand primary health care services aimed at preventing and treating HIV and providing first-line ART therapy.

Judge van der Schyff said the initiative gave members of the public a choice as to whether they wanted to approach a pharmacist, who had been issued with a permit, or a general practitioner.

In considering procedural fairness, the judge said there was nothing sinister in the timing of the notice calling for comment, that the project was not something hidden in secrecy and “I find it improbable, as alleged, that none of IPA’s members had timeous knowledge of the board notice”.

The decision to implement PIMART also fell within the ambit of the SAPC’s powers.

Evidence also showed that the PIMART training course was developed to ensure that pharmacists who successfully completed the training would be suitably qualified to safely and effectively assist in providing ART.

Judge van der Schyff dismissed the review application and ordered IPA to pay the costs.

Professor Francois Venter, former President of the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society and Director of Ezintsha, an HIV research organisation at Wits University, commented, “I hope this is the end of it. The pharmacies are an essential part of the health system, and pharmacists internationally play a big role in expanding HIV services.”

Republished from GroundUp under a Creative Commons 4.0 Licence.

Source: GroundUp

Categories : Medical Industry Mental HealthTags :

Study Reveals Higher Suicide Rates among Pharmacists

On By ModernMedia
Phot by Mulyadi on Unsplash

While the COVID pandemic put the spotlight on the issue of mental health and burnout among doctors and nurses, less was known about the mental health of pharmacists. Results of a longitudinal study published in the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association reveal a suicide rate among pharmacists nearly twice that of the general population.

The figures are based on data from 2003 through 2018, show a suicide rate of 20 per 100 000 pharmacists compared to 12 per 100 000 in the general population. Study authors expect numbers to be even higher in subsequent years due to the additional stressors of the pandemic, and are currently evaluating more recent data.

“If we learned anything from the pandemic, it’s that there is a breaking point for health professionals,” said corresponding author Kelly C. Lee, PharmD, professor at UC San Diego.

The study identified the most common means of suicide in this population, with 49.8% of cases involving firearms, 29.4% involving poisoning and 13% involving suffocation. The use of firearms was similar between pharmacists and the general population, but poisoning via benzodiazepines, antidepressants and opioids was more frequent among pharmacists.

The data also provide some insight into contributing factors, including a history of mental illness and a high prevalence of job problems. Job problems are the most common feature of suicides across health care professions.

For pharmacists, Lee said job problems reflect significant changes in the industry in recent years, with more pharmacists being employed by hospitals and chain retailers as opposed to the small, private pharmacies more common in the past. Pharmacist responsibilities have also grown considerably, with larger volumes of pharmaceuticals to dispense and increasing demands to administer vaccines and other health care services.

“Pharmacists have many more responsibilities now, but are expected to do them with the same resources and compensation they had 20 years ago,” said Prof Lee. “And with strict monitoring from state and federal regulatory boards, pharmacists are expected to perform in a fast-paced environment with perfect accuracy. It’s difficult for any human to keep up with that pressure.”

Future research will further evaluate which job problems have the biggest impact and how the field can better respond. In the meantime, Prof Lee advised pharmacists to encourage help-seeking behaviours amongst themselves and their colleagues.

“Mental health is still highly stigmatised, and often even more so among health professionals,” said Prof Lee. “Even though we should know better, there is such an expectation to appear strong, capable and reliable in our roles that we struggle to admit any vulnerabilities. It’s time to take a look at what our jobs are doing to us and how we can better support each other, or we are going to lose our best pharmacists.”

Source: University of California San Diego