The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7215 p371
14 September 2002

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World Congress of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences summary

Military and emergency pharmacists make excellent co-ordinators in relief operations

Military and emergency pharmacists make excellent co-ordinators in disaster relief programmes, Colonel Robert Van Damme, pharmaceutical inspector, Belgian Armed Forces, told the congress during a pharmacy practice symposium on 3 September.

The reason is that they are used to working with the medical and logistical side of an organisation. "Understanding both areas and being particular about about detail means we are good at problem solving in this regards," said Colonel Van Damme, adding that pharmacy, as a cross science between biology, chemistry and medicine is a good basis for making its graduates able to cope with medical logistics as well as hygiene measures.

Military and emergency pharmacists act as medication managers, supervise the field or emergency pharmacy and act as medical supply supervisers. Their skills therefore need to encompass: an ability to make therapeutic modifications; a knowledge of supply mechanisms and sources; a knowledge sufficient to act as a drug information source; an ability to perform supply management and organisation; patient and clinical contact skills; an ability to advise on environmental and food hygiene and vector control; and a basic knowledge of clinical biology.

Colonel Van Damme told the congress that normal medical and pharmaceutical practice is not always possible in relief operations in disaster areas. In such cases the ordering of priorities is paramount and hygiene measures may prove to be much more important than proper curative medicine. "The patient's safety should be the prime goal," he said. "All health workers should therefore try to comply as well as possible with internationally accepted quality standards." Every patient is entitled to the best possible help, he concluded.