Dr. R. Kant for BeyondHeadlines
Almost ninety per cent of the homoeopathy pharmacies across India do not have trained pharmacy staff – the reason is the absence of a formal training course, as pointed out by AYUSH Department, which deals with Ayurveda, Unani and Homoeopathy.
The situation forces hospital authorities to run pharmacies with unqualified staff, which is a matter of worry as chances are very high that the patients may get wrong medicines.
The DIHPPS Institute in New Delhi is the only Homoeo pharmacy institute in India to offer formal homeopathy pharmacy/dispenser courses. But it is not enough in a country with over a billion people.
Once a patient came back to the doctor after buying medicines from the Homoeopathic pharmacy to ask him about the pattern of consumption. But, when the doctors saw the medicine he went to the pharmacy along with the patient to replace those items.
The patient realized that the medicines given by the pharmacy staff were not the correct ones, said Ansar Alam, a patient. When contacted to me, I told them that there is a shortage of pharmacy staff in all homeopathy hospitals in India.
There are courses named D. Pharma (Homoeo) or Homoeo Dispenser offered at DIHPPS Institute, but our institute is not enough to fulfill the shortage of Homoeopathic Pharmacists in the country. It could only release 50 trained pharmacists in a year against a huge demand. The courses are approved by National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) and our institute has been allotted only 50 seats per year.
Homeopathy treatment has received a shot in the arm with the arrival of palliative care and revived cancer treatment facilities. More and more patients are becoming attracted to it. Shortage of staff in this context becomes a serious issue which demands utmost consideration.
(The author is a Director of DIHPPS Institute.)
