In its initial reaction to the SAPC’s 2021 application at the time – on much of which it based its own application – IPAF submitted that the proposed approach in terms of the notices, i.e. Board Notice 17 of 2021 – Pharmacists who provide Pharmacist-Initiated Management of Antiretroviral Therapy (PIMART) services in South Africa (Board Notice 17); and Board Notice 71 of 2021 – Rules Relating to Good Pharmacy Practice (Board Notice 71) “shall undoubtedly compromise the quality of care that patients are entitled to receive. Further, the comments demonstrate the inappropriateness and potentially dangerous consequences of increasing a pharmacist’s scope of practice to provide sexual and reproductive health services to the public”.
Also of concern was the precedent this could set in other areas of general practice.
In handing down her judgement late yesterday, Judge Elmarie van der Schyff acknowledged that pharmacists and doctors operate in distinct and separate professional domains, the boundaries of which are closely guarded “and some tension exists”.
“IPA’s objection to PIMART,” she added, “seems to be rooted, partially at least, in this professional tension. This is evidenced by its fear that the decision to implement PIMART might ‘open the floodgates’ and ‘pave the way for pharmacists to ultimately treat and prescribe other schedule 4 drugs in respect of acute illnesses’”.
She also reportedly made the point that “the need to widen access to first-line ART and TPT therapy on a community level is not a figment of SAPC’s imagination, but a dire need that is also evidenced in other countries”.
*This is a developing story. More details and comment to follow.
SOURCE: News24/own archives