KARACHI: Sindh Health Secretary Dr Fazlullah Pechuho deplored that the medication errors including misspelled prescriptions, lookalike medicines and other mistakes committed by the healthcare providers were killing people while pharmacists hired by the government were not given responsibilities, which was a governance issue at the hospital level and should be resolved soon.
Speaking at a reception hosted in the honour of eminent pharmacist and President of Pakistan Society of Health-System Pharmacists (PSHP) Abdul Latif Sheikh, who was awarded with the prestigious Donald E Francke Medal and Award, the Sindh health secretary said that there were at least 50 pharmacists hired for the Civil Hospital Karachi alone by the government, but were not being consulted by the doctors and hospital management to utilise their expertise in saving patients’ lives.
“A few months back, a German lady came to me at my office and complained that her husband was killed due to the medication error in the city. When we investigated the matter, it appeared that somebody gave anti-cancer medicine to her husband instead of anti-hypertension medicine because the packaging of both the medicines was similar. The German man could not understand English language and by consuming wrong medicine, he died,” Pechuho told participants.
Paying rich tribute to the PSHP president and the former chief pharmacist at Aga Khan University Hospital Abdul Latif Shaikh on receiving the prestigious medal and award from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), he said Americans had never given awards to ordinary people and if they had selected someone from Pakistan, it means that the person did a great service to the humanity and saved thousands of lives which compelled Americans to award him the prestigious award.
He maintained that the government was trying to introduce clinical pharmacy services and practices at the public hospitals throughout the province and in this regard, consultation with pharmacy council, associations of pharmacists, the pharmaceutical industry and private sector would be started soon to achieve the important milestone in the health sector.
On the occasion, he suggested that the highest civil award of medicine and public service should be awarded to Abdul Latif Sheikh for his service of ailing the humanity and people of Pakistan, and he vowed that the health department would recommend his name for the highest civil award in the country.
In his keynote address, Abdul Latif Sheikh said that as many as half a million people were annually killed in healthcare facilities in Pakistan due to medication errors including misspelled prescriptions, lookalike medicines and drugs with similar names but lives of these people could be saved by adopting the modern clinical pharmacy practices.
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