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