On World Pharmacists Day 2023 on Tuesday, The News highlighted that 80,000 prescription errors have been reported in the past year at major health centres in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.
Prescription errors means that doctors either prescribed wrong medicine, incorrect dosage, or did not take into consideration the interaction between drugs, a potentially fatal error.
“Of these 80,000 prescription errors, 96% errors were accepted and recognized by the prescribing physicians and surgeons and they rectified their prescriptions in consultation with clinical pharmacists to ensure patient safety”, Sardar Shabbir Ahmed, President of Pakistan Pharmacists Association (PPA), told a ceremony to mark the World Pharmacists Day 2023.
He also highlighted that prescription error is the sixth leading cause of death in developed countries like America as 7000-9000 people die every year due to this mistake.
He urged that there is an urgent need to “introduce clinical pharmacy services at all the public and private health facilities to prevent deaths and disabilities due to medication errors and adverse drug reactions”.
A solution for that, as Shabir Ahmed provided, is pharmacovigilance centers across the country that will keep the prescription procedure in check by detecting, monitoring and preventing “adverse drug reactions” and keep patients safe.
