Pharmacists demand adequate slots in recruitment of health workers

The Zambia Union of Pharmacy Professionals (ZUPP) is demanding that in the next recruitment exercise, where government intends to recruit 3,000 health workers, Pharmacy personnel should be given adequate slots.

ZUPP General Secretary, Obbie Chomba, said lack of qualified pharmacy personnel to manage the supply chain in the public health institutions is one of the major causes of drug shortages.

Chomba said availability of pharmaceutical services starts with having adequate numbers of pharmaceutical personnel who are key to ensuring that these services are available.

He said pharmaceutical services can only be of good quality if there is an uninterrupted supply of drugs and medical supplies and government should know that the country is still grappling with matters of drug shortages.

“This results in wrong consumption data being generated at service delivery points and this then implies that data being used for forecasting and quantification is always unreliable compromising commodity security,” Combat said.

He said this will not only be a fulfilment of the New Dawn’s promise on employment creation but a clear demonstration of government commitment to improving the drug shortage situation the country is currently trying to deal with.

Chomba said the government recently employed 11,000+ health care workers out of this number, only 53 pharmacists and 303 pharmacy technologists were employed.

“This number represents about 0.48 percent of the total health care workers employed bringing the number of pharmacy personnel in public health institutions to 2,210 all cadres combined, representing 76 percent of the old structures,” he said.

Chomba said the structures were revised a long time ago and this number leaves majority of institutions unmanned, and those manned have inadequate staff.

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