Editorial
Welcome to the first homepage edition of i2P for 2012.
In many ways it has been a slow start to the New Year because of having to deal with the “leftovers” from 2011.
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Volume 2012 Number 1
Health Politics
Neil Johnston: Friends of Science in Medicine
Peter Sayers: Confessions of a Frustrated PharmacistEPublications
The PSA differentiate itself!!!! What!!! You must be joking.
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James Ellerson is passionate about developing primary health care services across the spectrum of all health care practitioners working in a practical alliance, whether in an urbanised or a remote setting. | |
Why should it bother? The pressures of our rapidly ageing population combined with the determination of the Rudd Labor Government to introduce major reforms directed at restructuring the Primary Health Care system leaves the PSA with only one choice - become more relevant in its own right; or face the consequences of becoming increasingly irrelevant and even more subservient to the Guild than it is today. There are no other options.
What would it achieve?
A well resourced and well funded PSA would quickly find itself becoming stronger and better able to influence the future direction of community and hospital pharmacy; free of the weighty impediments and vested interests of the pharmacy owners’ lobby group - the PGA. It could achieve so much if it could make itself heard above the noise as ‘the true spokesperson’ representing all pharmacists.
One only needs to take a close look at the doctors’ lobby groups, like the RACGP, to see what could be achieved. The Doctors’and Pharmacists’ professional groups should be working more in unison with each other like a well trained rowing eight - gliding through the water, all working as one. Could that day ever come where PSA and RACGP sit round the table, share resources and plan strategies to work together to build a stronger, healthier, more integrated, well coordinated, collaborative primary healthcare system? Ahhh, it would be like soothing music to the ears of government and overwhelmingly welcomed by patients everywhere.
Who could help?
First and foremost the PSA must help itself. It needs to muster the courage to show that it believes in itself. The commonality of goals and philosophies which revolve around caring for people who need and want a more streamlined, more sensitive, more supportive , more integrated primary health system suggests the PSA and RACGP have more than a little in common. That being so they could help each other achieve so much. So let the dialogue begin before it is too late, before the reforms get out of control and fragment our excellent system of primary and community care beyond the point of no return.
What are the roadblocks?
The major roadblock is the Guild and its cohort of owners. It does not represent the professional pharmacist, yet all too often it presents itself as ‘the appointed representative’ for all of pharmacy; rather than in its limited role as the ‘representative of the owners of community pharmacies who employ community pharmacists’. It does not represent the best in the system; for that is not its charter.
How much more relevant would pharmacists and doctors be if their peak professional bodies could find a way to truly work together; to negotiate with government as friends and allies in the interest of their members and the community of patients they are there to serve?
PSA’s voice is so ‘little’.
A good dose of testosterone would give it a deep voice and facial hair but it won’t get that from ‘Big Brother’. No way. The best the Guild will offer is a 75 ml bottle of Fess to keep the nasal passages moist. It will ration the oxygen, keep them subservient, drip feed them on false love and anaesthetize them with sweet words so they cannot recognise the cause of their suffering. Is the PSA capable of overcoming its inbuilt weaknesses that make it so subservient to the Guild? Probably not, but all professional pharmacists and caring doctors should be hoping that it is.
It is time, as Sir Walter Raleigh wrote, to bid the Guild “Farewell False Love”:-
Farewell false love, the oracle of lies,
A mortal foe and enemy to rest,
An envious boy, from whom all cares arise,
A bastard vile, a beast with rage possessed,
A way of error, a temple full of treason,
In all effects contrary unto reason.
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Kay Dunkley - BPharm, Grad Dip Hosp Pharm, Grad Dip Health Admin, MPS, MSHPA: Support services for pharmacists and doctors in the United Kingdom – Part 3 Royal Medical Benevolent Fund | open full screen
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Dr David More: Australian Health Information Technology LinksIndigenous Health
Preventive Medicine
Gerald Quigley: It’s Time!If any difficulty is found in subscribing, please use the "Contact Us" panel found in the navigation bar with the message "subscribe" and your email address.
Submitted by Maxine Goodman on Wed, 07/10/2009 - 09:48.
While I was branch director at PSA NSW we negotiated a MOA with the RACGP which both presidents signed However very little eventuated due to changes in personnel on both sides. So Some within PSA did agree at least at that time
Submitted by Neil Johnston on Tue, 17/11/2009 - 13:09.
And maybe the same will happen again Maxine unless there are planned discussions to define the Memorandum of Understanding and keep it relevant by creating a living document.
But this also means communicating progress (and failures)and accepting input from all interested parties.
Will it happen?
I certainly hope so.
Submitted by Gerald Quigley on Tue, 06/10/2009 - 15:28.
PSA claim to represent the majority of pharmacists. Is this reflected in their member numbers? Can they justify their claim to represent us on professional issues? After all, the individual pharmacist usually provides the professional services their employer organization has negotiated with government. What professional recognition is that employee pharmacist given in this equation?
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