Pharmacist profession building process for 65 years in Indonesia has indeed brought many changes. Regulations have been made as such to go in line with pharmaceutical practices. Corresponding to Government Regulation no 51/2009 on pharmaceutical works, the role of pharmacist has been concretely and clearly defined. With this regulation, the pharmacist is expected to focus more on giving pharmaceutical care so that the patient receives optimal outcome of the drug and treatment. Unfortunately, this thing is still hard to implement.
"The main issue of this problem is the wrong thinking. The pharmacist still adopts old ways for new activities whereas in the old way pharmacy has been positioned as a trade, hence drug sale and purchase,” said Drs. M. Dani Pratomo, MM., Apt, elected President of Federation of Asian Pharmaceutical Association, at Faculty of Pharmacy UGM on Wednesday (27/9).
According to Dani Pratomo, positioning pharmacy as a trade enterprise is directly related to the change in orientation of pharmaceutical practices from compounding to dispensing. This is because of the rapid development in techology that made pharmaceutical industry flourish. When still orientated towards compounding, the competence of pharmacist is still relevant and needed, especially to prevent incompatibility so that stability of drug making can be guaranteed for certain period.
Dani added changes will keep coming while pharmacy activity should follow suit. "If seen more in depth, dispensing activity needs different ways from compounding activity, so do pharmaceutical care activities. Thus, it is not surprising if pharmacist role is getting more out of sight in society,” he said.
Delivering remarks titled Era of Demography Bonus: Right Momentum to Realise Existence of Pharmacy, Dani Prakoso said learning from experience and understanding the magnitude of current and future rapid changes, stakeholders are expected to be able to redefine pharmaceutical practices that are in line with changes. They are also expected to produce new ways.
"We need to devise new ways and socialise them so that the stakeholders would understand and benefit from the role of pharmacists,” he said.