BY YVONNE  CHATE –

THE Pharmaceutical Society of Zambia (PSZ) has proposed to regularise pharmacists following concern over their conduct.
PSZ president Lyoka Lyoka appealed to the Government to enable the organisation to regulate pharmacists in Zambia and give them priority in the sale of drugs and establishment of stores, and guarantee efficient health service delivery.
Mr Lyoka said there was growing concern in the way pharmacists were conducting themselves, hence the need for the Government to allow the PSZ to regularise their operations.
Mr Lyoka said this during the annual pharmacists’ exhibition and scientific conference in Ndola.
The Health Professional Council of Zambia could not adequately regulate pharmacists because of the increased number of health practitioners in the country.
“It is important to regulate pharmacists in as much as they are adherent to the ethics and ways of practice is concerned. We have a public outcry in the way pharmacists are conducting themselves,” he said.
“We have a body that regulates health professionals but there has been an increase in the number of health practitioners in Zambia because of increased population and other factors that have led to an incapacitated situation for the body”.
Mr Lyoka said there was need for the Government to allow different councils to regulate different health professions and ensure
efficiency in monitoring them.
This would also help pharmacists and other health practitioners to operate efficiently and provide adequate services.
He said there was need for pharmacists to be involved in the manufacture, research and management supply chain of medicines.
This would avert conditions such as diseases and deaths resulting from mismanagement and inappropriate dispensation of medicines.
“Pharmacists need to be involved in the supply chain of medicines because medicines are not like any ordinary goods but they have to be managed in a manner that befits storage conditions and can only be effective if handled under optimal conditions,” Mr Lyoka said.
Health Minister Joseph Kasonde urged pharmacists to take up post-graduate studies in key pharmacy areas.
Dr Kasonde said this in a speech read for him by Copperbelt medical officer Consity Mwale.