Pharmacists & Critical Allowance

Minister of Health : Datuk Liow Tiong Lai (bkn dia yg tulis kt bwh ni)

click this link - http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/11/13/focus/5102453&sec=focus

At the moment, graduate pharmacists have to be trained in government hospitals for one year and forced to work for another three years before they can opt for greener pastures outside. Their salary is already low when compared with the private sector.

Pharmacists are also subjected to on-call and overtime work like doctors, but they are not allowed to claim on-call allowances like doctors.

Pharmacists need their own transport to go to work in the wee hours of the night when they are on-call. The critical allowance is just enough for them to foot the car maintenance and petrol bill.

Also, critical allowance is crucial as they are among critical front-liners exposing them­selves to health hazards and risks when dispensing drugs to patients at the counters.

Then what about the cytotoxic department? Every day, pharmacists enter the clean room and expose themselves to the aerosol of cancer drugs (a single drop of cytotoxic drug can cause necrosis or mutation).

In the methadone department, pharmacists are also at risk. They have to park their cars far away from the department to avoid their cars being vandalised. There are threat cases as well when pharmacists meet the addicts outside.

Every day, pharmacists have to go in and out of wards to counsel patients with infectious diseases, not to mention the current H1N1 pandemic with many pharmacists reportedly suspected of being infected.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/11/13/focus/5102453&sec=focus