Push for community pharmacies to help share health-care burden

Eunice Lam

Community pharmacies could help ease the burden of public hospitals - by dispensing drugs and offering counseling to patients as an alternative to their frequent follow-up visits - says medical and health services lawmaker David Lam Tzit-yuen.

The community pharmacy policy was outlined in the government's primary health-care blueprint in December 2022.

Community pharmacies could come in handy in cases such as that of an 83-year-old patient who was given psychoactive drugs for 14 months after being discharged from Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital.

"There are several consequences for hospitals prescribing a large amount of medication, including elderly patients being hospitalized before their next follow-up, in which case the medicines prescribed the last time would be voided," Lam said.

"Since the medicines may turn bad due to improper storage, the Hospital Authority will not recall those once they are prescribed to patients.

"Community pharmacists can see whether the patients have taken their medicines correctly, or check for any adverse effects."

Tim Pang Hung-cheong, a patients' rights advocate with the Society for Community Organization, said community pharmacies can facilitate patients to receive their medicines, instead of those patients waiting for their next follow-up visits at public hospitals.

eunice.lam@singtaonewscorp.com