By Alan Clement
The head of South Sudan’s General Medical Council, has issued a strong reminder to pharmacists of their professional boundaries, asserting that their role is to dispense, but not prescribe medication.
Speaking during World Pharmacists’ Day celebrations in Juba on Friday, the Council Chairperson Prof. Rose Ajak highlighted significant public health and patient safety risks stemming from what she called the widespread practice of pharmacists turning their shops into “mini-clinics.”
“If you are given the go-ahead to open a dispensary, your training does not give you the leverage to prescribe. Do pharmacists prescribe? The answer is no,” Prof. Ajak declared. “It is a dispensary, not a mini-clinic. You issue medications, but you don’t prescribe,” she added.
Prof. Ajak cited dangerous practices she has observed, including patients being given combinations of multiple drugs for simple ailments like a headache, and the alarming trend of pharmacists filling prescriptions from “the neighbor, from the funeral places, from the kitchens, from the marketplace.”
A particularly disturbing example she shared was that of a child who developed Cushing’s syndrome after three years of self-medication, a practice facilitated by a pharmacist who repeatedly dispensed a previously prescribed drug without proper oversight.
She emphasized that pharmacists have a responsibility to question improper prescriptions and report questionable practices. “It is your right to go to the doctor and tell the doctor, ‘You know, I cannot give this medication and this medication together. This is my training,'” she advised.
Prof. Ajak also reminded pharmaceutical companies and associations that registration with the Council does not amount to a license to practice not that the registration certificate is not a license. “If you want your pharmacist to practice, you must obtain a license from the Council,” she clarified.
The remarks come amid growing concerns over self-prescription, expired drugs on the market, and dangerous combinations of medicines dispensed without proper medical oversight. Prof. Ajak warned that such practices were putting lives at risk and undermining the profession and urged pharmacists to uphold ethics and prioritize patient safety despite economic hardships.
She stated that while many things are “not going right” in the medical profession, professionals themselves must take action. “If you start doing the right thing at your pharmacy, at your drugstore, then things will change,” she said.
“Think health, think pharmacist. Let us do the right thing in our pharmacies and drugstores to protect our citizens,” she concluded.
Prof Ajak called on the members of the public to cease from unnecessary consumption of drugs with not proper prescription.