Dear Editor,
The Pharmacy Council of Guyana made it a law in 2003 that all graduates of the University of Guyana (UoG) who have completed the Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy must complete an internship programme of not less than six months, before obtaining a licence to practise as a professional pharmacist.
On January 2, 2017 all students who had graduated in the 2016 Bachelor of Pharmacy degree programme at UG should have started their internship. The Pharmacy Council was not prepared, so they told us we needed to pay a registration fee of $5000 before February 27, 2017 and provide certain information and a job application to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, so that the internship programme could commence thereafter. The Pharmacy Council has not yet issued a formal letter or email to the registered students stating the date, time and place as to when the internship will start.
The Pharmacy Council, which is a body corporate, has not organized an internship programme. Under the Pharmacy Practitioner Act 2003 the Pharmacy Council has to establish, maintain, and develop standards for the practice of pharmacy; and publish, distribute or disseminate in any manner the Council thinks fit, literature and information relevant to the pharmacy profession.
We are being pushed around by the Council, and we ask why nothing has been put in place since the 2003 Act.
We ask that the Minister of Health, the Honourable Volda Lawrence provide an urgent solution. We are also requesting that we be compensated for the loss of earnings and career advancement by the Pharmacy Council because of the unnecessary delay in being granted our licence to practice. We have spent four years of our lives studying hard to be pharmacists because we have a passion for health care provision. The Pharmacy Council by their unconscionable and unprofessional delay has prevented better health provision being made available to those patients in need of health care.
Yours faithfully,
(Name and address
provided)