Africa and the progress in pharmacy

 

Healthcare is an issue that poses a lot of challenges in societies without the privileges of availing its enormous benefits, as well as questions, to those with the responsibility for its provision. The masses on the receiving end of this complex system are left to deal with the spillover resulting from the volume of issues the few number of qualified health practitioners are forced to contend with. In coping with the challenges our environment poses on us, efforts have been made to handle the diseases arising, which seemed to emerge from the shadows. Although some form of progress was made in this vein, time would tell its effectiveness.

Before the turn of healthcare dispensing and the development of drugs for manufacture, Africa was saddled with the responsibility for keeping her people alive.  Those to whom this responsibility was placed upon were the traditional herbal practitioners, otherwise known as medicine men. The curative properties of certain plants, roots, barks, gotten from their immediate environment, were utilized in curing ailments that plagued the community.

However, it would be practically impossible to handle the health needs of the increasing population of patients; the effects of  harmful forms of diseases with a wide variety of symptoms to classify, as well as uncommon causes to identify. The options for healthcare needed to be widened further to derive practical and effective solutions; rather than yielding to vague superstitions for the time being. A systematic approach was developed: the study of the factors that favor the growth of these pathogens; the conditions that necessitated the development of the disease at the first instance; the pattern of response on those affected; the mechanisms triggered off by the body in reversing the unstable health.

Useful techniques were devised thereafter eradicate the prevalence of the disease causing agents and improving the bodyâ??s mechanism at erasing its resulting symptoms. It thinned down to the issue of dispensing health care across to teeming masses. The benefits of quality health care delivery would be limited if it is received by the patient in the hospital ward alone. A major step, thereafter, was taken: manufacture of drugs in large numbers to cover those estimated to have been affected by a particular ailment. Various forms of medication were being formulated for treating a variety of causes and symptoms, as well as to solve the problem of drug consumption.  At the doctorâ??s specification, the pharmacist streamlines the drug medication- by his statement of dosage and prescriptions- to the health condition applicable to the patient.

In Africa, medical practitioners, especially pharmacists are in low supply. The majority of the population depend on the use of drug tablets since the statement of the physician is oftentimes, made on the packages of the drug itself. This measure is limited with regard to delivering healthcare to the people. On the obvious, this is an alternative means of delivering healthcare, since the availability of medical facilities is incommensurate with the number of patients.

 Nonetheless, the importance of training more pharmacists for practice in hospitals is vital in saving lives. The branches in pharmacy have on offer, breakthroughs in research; the development of drugs and vaccines, therapies and more effective methods of dispensing healthcare. The adequate number of clinical pharmacists would go a long way in facilitating effective healthcare delivery in the hospitals.

The government has a role to play in training our pharmacists, if possible send them abroad, to equip them on the best practice in pharmacy. They also saddled with the responsibility of developing the vast herbal resources- with a wide genetic variety and medicinal value. Our indigenous medicine men should not be relegated to the background. They gave birth to the â??pharmacyâ?? we derive so many benefits from- as a result of its practice today. They are the first link to natureâ??s pharmacy, and need the support of the government, including the cooperation of the trained pharmacists, to overcome the challenges of healthcare delivery in Africa. Little wonder a writer said, â??Each tropical rainforest is a chemical storehouse; each time a medicine man dies, it is like an irreplaceable library burning down.   

NWANOSIKE MICHAEL
http://www.articlesbase.com/alternative-medicine-articles/africa-and-the-progress-in-pharmacy-496801.html

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