A group of unemployed pharmacy technicians by the name Concerned Unemployed Pharmacy Technicians Association of Ghana (CUPTAG), is appealing to the government for clearance and postings.
According to the group which has about 300 members, no pharmacy technician has been given clearance or posted to a health facility since 2017.
Demboh Rauf Bomboogi, one of the organizers of the group said that due to the technical nature of their training, they are very vital to Ghana’s health sector and as such, their roles cannot be performed by any other health professionals including nurses.
He said their services are critical, especially in rural areas without professional pharmacists.
“We are equally Ghanaians and like the nurses or the lab technicians, they should equally treat us well. Our people in the villages especially where there are no pharmacists, there will be the need for our services. Our service is so important that we think we should not be neglected or discriminated against as we have been suffering all this while. We have the right knowledge, but we are not employed to do the work.”
“The most disturbing part is that in some rural areas, the work that we are supposed to do, you see other people doing it, including nurses who actually have no pharmaceutical training,” he said.
Pharmacy Technicians supply medicines to patients, whether on prescription or over the counter. They also assemble medicines for prescriptions and provide information to patients and other healthcare professionals.
