SVGPA aiming to inject life back into association

President of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Pharmacists Association (SVGPA) Fiona Dennie-Pierre says the newly elected executive’s main objective is to inject some life into the pharmacy body.{{more}}

Dennie-Pierre, along with the association’s executive secretary Shevon Cameron and treasurer Joann Ince-Jack, visited SEARCHLIGHT last week, where they outlined some of the plans for the executive’s two-year term, which started early last month.

The president said that a number of initiatives are being worked on, in an attempt to revive the association, as well as to bring more public awareness to the group.

As a result, delinquent members are being encouraged to pay just two years membership fees that would bring them current with the group; all other membership fees will be forgiven.

The executive hopes that this would bring the approximately 40 members back to the fold, as the association forges ahead with its plans for the future.

“We found that a lot of our members seem no longer interested as they were in time gone by, so what we want to do is ignite that fire again to get pharmacists excited about the profession.

“The target is to get the members excited again about the profession and we need to practice pharmacy as it should,” Dennie-Pierre said.

The visiting executive members also indicated that the association would be undertaking continuing education workshops, which would be executed with other health care givers. The first such workshop is slated to begin in June this year.

The members pointed out that the work of pharmacists is being taken for granted and that their job is not just to dish out medication to patients.

“We don’t only dispense; we work with the health care team which would be the other health professionals,” Ince-Jack pointed out.

“We provide pharmaceutical care for a definite outcome that improves the patient’s quality of life… patient specific dosing, which is based on a person’s weight… we are supposed to be doing that.

“We are the gatekeepers,“ she noted.

“The profession is so dynamic, things change every day, so we have to really keep abreast or become obsolete,” president Dennie-Pierre added.

“So much drugs are discovered in one day, so you have to keep abreast and you have to know what’s going on.

“We are passionate about our profession and despite the public has not been hearing from us, our hope is to carry the mandate and penetrate the society.

“The health of the nation is what comes first.”