Pharmacy Daily | Be kind to each other in era of change

PHARMACISTS are being urged to "be kind and forgiving to each other" as the profession embraces an era of unprecedented change.

Speaking during an International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) COVID-19 webinar last week, the organisation's CEO, Catherine Duggan, said pharmacists were dealing with rapid changes throughout the crisis, and needed to be supportive of each other.

Duggan told delegates pharmacists were seeing immediate implementation of new systems and procedures, adding to the pressure the profession is facing.

"Some of the changes you've seen would normally take six months, minimum, to implement," she said.

"It's worth acknowledging not only are we dealing with this big problem... but on top of it, we're layering it with change upon, change upon change.

"The thing I'm telling my team is - this affords us a bit of elbow-room if we do make mistakes or if things don't go to plan, let's be kind and forgiving to each other, because we're all doing our best."

Duggan's remarks followed Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) Early Career Pharmacist (ECP) Working Group NSW National Representative, Sarah Dineen-Griffin's assessment of the impact the pandemic has had on pharmacy in Australia to date.

"I'm really proud of our profession in terms of continuing its vital role in supporting our communities at the time when we're most needed," Dineen-Griffin said.

"The last couple of months have probably been the most chaotic in pharmacy's history and social distancing has made things very tricky.

"Our entire business model has changed pretty much overnight, with no extra remuneration.

"Compounding on this... we had the bushfire crisis in Australia in Jan... I've seen pharmacists dealing with a lot of increased workload, panic buying, medicines shortages, off-indication prescribing, the stress of self-isolation and pharmacists risking their health every day to be there for our communities.

"We've had a lot of change here as well...we've had the introduction of both telehealth and digital prescribing, which has driven uptake much faster than it normally would have, and this has required a great deal of flexibility from community pharmacists to take on that challenge."