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Letters to the Editor
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Overseas membership
£256 is seven weeks’ allowance
From Ms C. J. Truman, MRPharmS
I, too, share the concern of Mumtaz
Hussain (PJ, 18 September, p383)
as to whether the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has considered the implication
of the new fee structure on members seeking to serve those in poorer
areas of this world.
I accept that it is from choice that I am a volunteer pharmacist in a
hospital which aims to provide essential clinical services to the poor
and marginalised of northern Bihar, India, and southern Nepal, but what
am I to do? I can hardly say I am non-practising when all day I am on
ward rounds or in the pharmacy, but £256 is approximately the same
as my allowance for seven weeks. I guess I will still need to pay the
additional airmail postage for The Journal so it is a dilemma that I
will have to face.
Maybe the Society only wishes to serve those members who are financially
ahead in this world. But throughout the profession I am sure I am not
alone in wishing to contribute in a practical way to the improvement
in health of those who are the poor and marginalised of this world. So
for two years I have been here and hope to remain for two more years,
but what to do?
Catherine Truman
Bihar, India
Professional integrity insulted
From Mr R. N. Morgan, MRPharmS
The letter from Ian
Nook (PJ, 28 August, p288) and the deputy secretary
and registrar’s response confuses me and insults my professional
integrity.
I registered in New Zealand in 1957 and in Britain in 2000, practising
on and off until 2004. I have no intention of returning to practise in
the UK and believe that my training and continuous professional development
undertaken in New Zealand is more than adequate to retain my place on
the British Register as a non-practising pharmacist (as far as the Royal
Pharmaceutical Society is concerned).
The Society has no jurisdiction over New Zealand practitioners and is
acting in a high-handed and discriminatory manner by ridiculously insisting
that overseas members must undertake CPD (British style) to remain on
the Register when we choose to practise overseas and not in Britain.
Put simply, I can continue to practise “elsewhere” (ie, in
New Zealand) without breaking any British law. To suggest otherwise is
ludicrous in the extreme.
The Society’s “intentions” will be completely ignored
by me, and I suspect by others. Any attempt to remove my name from the
British Register will be fought strenuously and I fully expect to win,
if only because common sense usually prevails.
Ron Morgan
Tauranga,
New Zealand
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