we're all suckers

tuesday. one lecture, one break, two lectures.

finished at 4pm. came home (with jevin) to sleep. i dunno why i was really tired.

woke up for the "Talk by Health Minister" at UCC, 7pm. Dress wear: formal. partly why i went back to change - i had army sandals on...

ok, from the start not everyone was very interested... perhaps the medicine students who wanted to hear something. i could see left right up down center everyone dozing off. trying to count the number of pharm students dozing off. lol. there were some medicine students who were seated in full view of the Minister, dozing off as well.

i wonder who the hell organised this, and what's the purpose.

it was to the q&a part that was most interesting.

after 3 questions posed by medicine students (well who said this wasn't a medicine-dominated affair?) the dean of medicine who was seated to the minister said, "can we have some people from pharmacy, dentistry, nursing?" just as another medicine dude was planning to shoot his mouth off. well. wrong choice.

yt rose to the occasion and posed the question that all pharmacists have been asking, something about giving the dispensing rights to pharmacists. to that, we all cheered.

the minister said something like "all people who can dispense should be able to dispense" or something to that effect, i.e. you don't need exclusively pharmacists to do dispensing. which is the system used in Singapore now. (in the top 5 countries ranked in order of medical development or what they give dispensing rights to pharmacists).

fair enough, well i think the pharmacist don't need dispensing rights, everything need not come through the pharmacist. more efficient. like that time in phil when i had to see the doctor, THEN get the medicine from a drugstore. horrible procedure. but if it comes through the pharmacist, then there is additional benefit that the drugs supplied to the patient are suitable. after all, that's what pharmacists' are for, right? or are they just to dispense like a dispensary medic?

the point here is that, currently, any ah-kow-ah-neow can dispense drugs, be it the university gal or the aunty who's working at a clinic. and GP clinics are the most frequently visited of all medical facilities. firstly, why do you require people with 4 years of pharmacy knowledge to do the same job? secondly, whos the regulator of these dispensors? the GP? the GP is inside his clinic room 1, examining his patient, doing counselling, writing case notes, and thinking of what time to go home. does he still wanna entertain questions from the receptionist, an untrained personnel, who might encounter problems with dispensing?

the thing is, we're asking, if we can have a share of the pie, if we can have the right to dispense and even prescribe, we can save more time, more doctors' time. so that they can attend to more patients. the thing about making the drugs cheaper i think is that we can recommend cheaper versions of the drug (or generic versions) to patients who might request for them - this prevents the doctors from deliberately overcharging. and finally we can act as a check against those guys who deliberately prescribe Subutex (although the law has solved this problem) to drug addicts and related cases. Will the GP care about whether the patient takes the drug properly?

THEN, he said something about "doctors are smarter than pharmacists, because they know how to attract customers" or some shit, implying that many more people go to doctors instead of a pharmacy (he specifically mentioned Guardian), because the doctors can sell them the drug more conveinently and on the spot rather than having to go to a pharmacy. like in phil. well. true. same problem - who mans those pharmacies?

this statement, be it in jest or meant to be analogous, is simply not becoming of a minister, who leads something. Someone of his stature should know better to shoot his mouth off like that. and it is a wrong statement - firstly there is no standard of which to measure "smartness" or intelligence - how smart or capable a doctor / pharmacist is depends on different things. and hence, it is unfair to make any comparison, if at all. the only thing that can measure "smartness" is A-level results, of course for that doctors have better results in general. But where can that definitely get you?

and this statement clearly drew a big divide among the pharmacy students and medical students seated. when we delivered our question, we clapped; when the minister gave his reply, the medicine students cheered back in return.

well~ nothing to say about this, but the main aim of the whole "medical team" system is that whether you are a doctor / dentist, pharmacist, nurse, therapist, counsellor, even down to the hospital cleaner - you will work together to ensure the well-being of the patient. we are all part of a team, and we need each other to deliver the full benefit of our treatment. i believe in that, and i still do now.

but now, the situation, and the system, makes it seem that everyone is there only for their own personal interests... i guess the minister is right when he says he's a sucker to have stayed in the MOH. probably we're all suckers to have chosen this path as well.