The Issue Of Pharmacy Ethics & Legislation
In order to maintain a reliable trustworthy relationship between a pharmacist and his patients, a set of guidelines that includes important virtues and essential moral obligations was made and officially supported by pharmacists and is known as the ethical code. Some principles that are included in the ethical code include the mutual respect between the pharmacist and the patient which is further elaborated as the trust that was given by the society and the patient with the pharmacist to help them and be committed to their wellbeing. Secondly, the pharmacist must behave towards the patients with a complete caring and confidential manner; in order for the patients to trust the pharmacist with their dignity not to be scratched by any means. Thirdly, the pharmacist should encourage patients’ autonomy and include them in the decision making concerning their medication which in result improves communication between them. Fourth of all, the pharmacist’s intentions must all be in favor of the patient as they should be void of any nonprofessional judgment and act with complete honesty and integrity without discriminating between a patient and another by any means. A pharmacist should update his knowledge with new medications in order to keep up his professional competence and be aware of the new technologies and advances in his field. As well as maintaining a good relationship with patients, pharmacists should have mutual respect between each other and other different health professionals and respects the abilities and values as they can be variable or different from one health professional to another but all are in favor of the patient’s health. Pharmacists do not affect individual patients only but the whole community they participate in in some cases; therefore, such a responsibility should be properly taken care of and acted accordingly towards. At last, the pharmacist should be fair in the process of drugs distribution, keeping in mind the needs of the society as well as the patient (PBA, 2016).
Medication related errors usually occur while the medication is in the hands of the patient or the health care professionals and a misuse is done by either but can be preventable. These errors are pretty common and are due to prescribing errors such as missing information in the prescription which can be considered as a failure in giving the required dose for the patient although the medication itself could be right as well as the administration but the medicine got administered by another wrong route which can also be done in case the pharmacist supplies the patient with the wrong medication causing the patient to go through several adverse effects which some professionals can count as misfortune while its due to the misuse of the acquired drug but the reason of the adverse effects should be tracked down. There are several examples for the medication related errors that can be done in any hospital or health care institution such as failing to supply the right patient with the right drug and the right dose, ordering the wrong drug for the patient with a wrong dose, an error in preparing the right dose of the drug for the right patient, failing to ensure the knowledge of the patient about the drug right route of administration and the possible side effects that may occur, and errors in administering the right drug with the same exact prescribed dose as well as errors in the route of administration that fits the patient since it varies from one to another. The errors of medications prescription can also be categorized according to the harm they cause for the patient which can vary from a mild side effect to severe ones that might lead to death, or according to their involvement into commission and omission (IUPC, n.d).
Over the counter drugs are drugs that do not have to be prescribed by a doctor in order to be bought off the pharmacies’ shelves, can be used by several individual although the possibility of contamination is probable in eye ointments; therefore they should be used individually and with intense care, such drugs usually rely on self-diagnosis which is likely to be flawed, or an error in the administration or using may occur. Some drugs are prescribed as OTC drugs when taken in small doses such as the hydrocortisone ointment with a concentrations of 0.5 while ones with a concentration of 2.5 must be professionally prescribed. There are several over the counter drugs known such as acetaminophens which can be taken for its several indications such as aches, headaches, and fevers as well as NSAIDS which has the infamous analgesic drug, ibuprofen. Other drugs for cold, coughs, and throat can also be considered as OTC drugs such as Guaifenesin, throat lozenges for sore throat like Halls, dextromethorphan medicines which can be known also as Benylin or Delsym. Decongestants can also be easily bought in case of enduring a runny nose and have many routes of administration such as nasal sprays or oral decongestants, as well as antihistamines which are used for used for allergies and allergic reactions and can be divided into sleepy antihistamines such as Tavist or Dimetapp, and no sleep inducing antihistamines such as cetirizine which is better known as Zyrtec. There are over the counter medicines that are used for an upset stomach and are used to treat diarrhea such loperamide, better known as Imodium, bismuth medicines like Kaopectate and rehydration fluids, and ones used for nausea and vomiting like Emetrol or rehydration fluids too (Zehr, n.d).
On the other hand, behind the counter drugs are more of restricted over the counter drugs that are only allowed to be sold in pharmacies but can be bought without a prescription but more of taken under the supervision of the pharmacist and are of a narrow set such as plan B contraceptives that are taken orally but should be given only to women that are of age older than 17 years old, and some allergy and cold medicines that has an active constituent known as pseudoephedrine or ephedrine as both can be misused and used for illegally making methamphetamine which is one of the most addictive drugs in some homes (Senak, 2008).
Controlled substances are known to be drugs that induce addiction or can be abused by the patients; therefore they are strongly controlled by the government. The controlling of the substances is applied according to the method the drug is being used, made, stored, transported, and finally distributed for specific patients. Such well controlled drugs are known to act as opioids, steroids that are anabolic, hallucinogens, depressants, and simulants. A licensed health professional is the only way such a drug as morphine, Ritalin, and Valium can be prescribed to a patient. There are other opioids that are banned and are considered to be illegal from several countries since their medical uses are unknown and are more likely to cause harm than good, and those can include LSD or heroin (NCI, n.d). Such laws of controlling are applied through formal scheduling which helps provide a mechanism for the controlling of the substances by adding, removing, or transferring them between a schedule and another. Such procedures of controlling are done by the department of health and human services in each individual country and they usually include many information such the manufacturer of the controlled drug, local or state government agencies, the pharmacy association, and even an individual citizen’s information. On the other hand, the factors that might determine whether the drug should be controlled or not include the abuse potential of that drug, evidence of the harmful or addictive pharmacological actions it might have, the abuse pattern and history, the significance, and lastly the duration of abuse (CSA, n.d).
Essential drugs cannot be afforded in developing countries due to the high prices of the generic name drugs and how they are not available everywhere so other solutions and alternatives that are mostly harmful are used instead. It was proven that a sixty percent of important medicines cannot be accessed by many developing countries such as ones in the eastern south of Asia and most importantly many parts and regions of Africa. These problems are defined to be due to the fact that the supplying management is pretty poor in such countries which in return leads to the deterioration of drugs and required vaccines, and due to the fact that drugs that are used for the treatment for life threatening diseases like AIDS, HIV, or TB are usually not manufactured in such developing countries unlike analgesics which can be easily made in them. Such problems were tracked by the German civil society organization down in order to know the reason for them which were known as the following: the lacking of personnel that are qualified in certain pharmaceutical technicians, the lack of reliable source of power and water in order to create pharmaceutical utilities, the fact that there are no regulations by the government in order to ensure the quality control of medicines, a lack or limited ability to access active ingredients in order to use in the medication, lack of reagents that ensure that quality of the drugs, excipients which are used to contain the active ingredients of the drug, and finally the nonexistence of proper funding, and adequate networks for distribution (Mysorekar, 2013).