Moonlighting pharmacists

Moonlighting pharmacists

According to an article published in The Jakarta Post on April
17, 2000, under the title Moonlighting pharmacists neglect
public's rights, a survey conducted by University of Indonesia
students revealed that in only 5 percent of drugstores surveyed
were pharmacists available to serve customers. In the other 95
percent, the pharmacists were not available because they are
civil servants or members of the military or the police.

To replace these moonlighting pharmacists, some 800 full-time
pharmacists will be needed. This is unlikely considering that new
graduates from pharmacy schools are not allowed to manage
drugstores in Jakarta before completing a three-year compulsory
service program. The law on this compulsory service was passed
half a century ago, but in practice it is applied only to medical
practitioners, dentists and pharmacists. It is never applied to
university graduates in other fields.

Several years ago, some 1,800 pharmacists were waiting to be
placed for their compulsory service by the health ministry. As a
result, the implementation of this law has been relaxed in the
sense that new pharmacy graduates are allowed to work anywhere
with the exception of managing drugstores in Jakarta.

In early 1999, the Association of Pancasila University
Pharmacy Alumni in Jakarta filed an application with the health
minister to the effect that new pharmacy graduates should be
allowed to manage drugstores in Jakarta. If this appeal was
granted, the need for 800 full-time pharmacists could be met by
recruiting pharmacists graduating from the Bandung Institute of
Technology and Padjajaran University in Bandung, Gajah Mada
University in Yogyakarta, Airlangga University in Surabaya and
Pancasila University, the University of Indonesia and August 17
University in Jakarta.

Allow me, therefore, to propose that new pharmacists work in
drugstores during the day and that pharmacists belonging to the
civil service, the military and the police continue to work in
drugstores in the evening. In this way, drugstores can serve the
community professionally.

SUNARTO PRAWIROSUJANTO

Jakarta