A very disappointing PPB!

If you trained in University of Nairobi, its time chest thumping stopped and we admit that our training did not meet the minimum competencies required for a pharmacist. If you dont agree with me, engage a randomn pharmacist on any issue you think is within the realmn of a pharmacist and you will see for yourself the results.

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Now that aside lets go to PPB issues, we are incompetent on the average, and thats not negotiable. I will expect DMS to fill in the gap that we created. I do not expect the Chief Pharmacist to even have an idea of what a cough syrup is, and the more reason why he must voluntarily relinquish his registrar post to PPB as we are awaiting for clarification to some contentious clauses in Pharmacy and Poisons Act of 2003. A vigilant pharmacist pointed out that that Act, which effectively repealed the older statute sneaked in a clause that the registrar shall be a Chief Pharmacist, (who is basically the administrator of public sector pharmacists and a technocrat in the parent ministry so many grades lower than the ministry's chief executive). No one knows if the clause was passed by the parliament or was sneaked in by the mover or was sneaked in at the printing stage effectively making it a typo error.

Someone please investigate, because it is that clause that brought in fundamental change in the operations of PPB and the overall management of the pharmaceutical sector. We have a Board that we elect representatives but have no control at all in its running. PSK elects/nominates 4 people for three years who absolutely have no control on what they were nominated to do.

The learning curve for pharmacists end with them being declared BPharm graduates.
There are no serious tutors who force pharmacist interns to put what they learnt in school (if any) into practice, worsening the already fragile situation. We do not have predecessors worth mentioning; the serious pharmacists are almost all under 35 and with less than 10yrs of experience and hardly possess anything much more than the first degree. Kenya is almost devoid of specialist pharmacists.

If we delinked PPB from the parent ministry, make it an Authority and give the Board the power to hire and fire its employees, there will be fundamental changes in Kenya pharmaceutical sector. The Board should not be staffed by the Ministry of Health employees, they should all be sent out to carry out service delivery. If I'm not competent to discharge regualtory functions with my current training and expereince, which I rank to be in the top quartile among the Kenyan pharmacists, no one in that Board has. Tell me one you believe is and I will give you a reward. Most of them are entry level pharmacists or even interns-what do they know? Regulatory activity is not about filling forms and dusting files and drinking tea, no. It is a well thought out process from an experienced specialist pharmacists who shoul dbe issuing weekly or monthly bulletins to be circulated to all stakeholders.

The Board members and the technical staff must have post graduate qualifications and have more than 10 years experience post registration, in all the represented areas in the Board's mandate unless they are secretaries (like the one who's upstairs and has issues in the upstairs) or accountants or sweepers or messengers or drivers or guards. The CEO must be selected in a competitive process. He must not be the sitting Chief Pharmacist. He must possess postgraduate qualifications in pharmacy as well as an advanced management degree because the Board draws a huge budget. He (and that also stands for she) must have excellent presentation skills and must have made significant contributions in the relevant publications. He must be compensated well and must not serve for more than two terms of four years each. He may serve in an advisory role for another four years if he successfully completes two-four year terms. Its only such a Board that can confirm or rubbish any drug claims and we listen.
As for now I will only trust my own independent research.

Without that, the DMS or the PS or the Minister or even the President can comment on the cough syrups. As things are now, they are all more competent than that Board, I'm sorry to say that.

Vacation

The blogger apologizes to all esteemed readers for non-publishing of your favourite blog so many months after the lapse of the two weeks 'vacation' period. I'm happy to inform you that the long standing legal issues that made it difficult to publish your favourite blog have been solved.

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