THE Malaysian Pharmacists Society (MPS) criticised the Government for not being invited to discuss the issues plaguing contract pharmacists and the former’s abysmal attempt to appease contract staffers.
“MPS is a major stakeholder in the welfare of contract pharmacists and should be included in any policy making plans.
“The authorities seem to lack understanding on the problems faced by contract pharmacists and we feel the Cabinet had missed the main issues of concern.
“We are talking about job security, standardisation of salary and benefits and the lack of transparency in appointments to permanent positions faced by more than 5,000 contract pharmacists,” its president Amrahi Buang told FocusM.
As contract medical officers (MOs) prepare to launch a strike tomorrow, Malaysiakini reported Prime Minister Tan Sri Mahiaddin announcing that the Government has agreed to provide contract MOs, dentists and pharmacists career path opportunities at par with their permanent colleagues.
Among the benefits include fully paid study leave but the Government did not address their main concern, which is getting permanent positions for all Government contract doctors.
Mahiaddin, instead, offered to extend their contract to a maximum of four years.
Livid by the recent turn of events, Hartal Doktor Kontrak (HDK) decided to go ahead with their nationwide picket tomorrow, calling the solutions “half-baked” and was only intended to muzzle them.
“Offering us another year of contract is not a solution; it’s a sugarcoated statement to shut us up. We know well how the system works, we are not buying it. Nobody wise enough will accept it,” they said, in a statement.
On the plight of contract pharmacists, Amrahi reminded the Government Malaysia still lacks pharmacists across the country, adding majority of district hospitals, especially in Sabah and Sarawak, are still not running onsite 24-hour pharmacy services.
The situation, he added, may result in chances of medication prescription errors for patients being admitted at night.
“According to the National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) 2019 by the Health Ministry (MOH), 9.4% Malaysians has diabetes, 15.9% has hypertension and 13.5% has high cholesterol.
“Therefore, pharmacists play a crucial role to ensure the patient’s chronic diseases are well controlled with proper medication adherence.
“What will help? Simple. Hire more permanent pharmacists and post them to run Medication Therapeutic Adherence Clinics (MTAC) full time to ensure continuity of care and higher success rate of disease control, especially involving non-communicable diseases (NCD),” he noted.
On the Government’s new scheme, Amrahi said that it lacked clarity on several matters, especially on when the new salary scheme would take effect.
“And I need to stress the need to immediately appoint pharmacists who had served for three years to grade UF43.
“The grade harmonisation plan should be detailed with clear timelines. This will prevent the issue from suffering through the same red tape that contract pharmacists have faced since 2016,” Amrahi mentioned.
He remarked: “MOH has to be transparent on the selection criteria of contract pharmacists being rewarded to a permanent position.
“But this was not clearly defined or addressed in the prime minister’s statement. The extension of one more year of contract is just another stop gap solution to this long-standing issue.” – July 25, 2021
