By Brook Sabin
Doctors say they are worried about a recommendation that people go to pharmacies more instead of visiting a GP.
A number of world healthcare experts are in New Zealand this week to explain how the move could save money and even lives.
Dr David Webber, chief executive of the World Self-Medication Industry, says pharmacists are currently underutilised.
“People tend to go to the doctor when they don't need to go to the doctor and there's a real opportunity to go and see the pharmacist,” he says.
“There’s a real opportunity to develop the role of the pharmacist.”
Surveys overseas indicate that 20 percent of a GP’s time is taken up with minor problems.
The WSMI has proposed that pharmacists do more for New Zealander’s everyday care and people take more responsibility for looking after themselves.
“That's the crux of this argument. It's a philosophy of self-care instead of putting yourself entirely in the doctor's hands,” says Dr Webber.
Pharmacists agree and say that with serious diabetes such as diabetes, a sufferer will visit them at least 12 times a year. They say patients need to make a better use of that relationship.
“The government needs to borrow $250 million a week at the moment to stay afloat. Health is a big part of that spend, so we need to find ways of doing things better and more efficiently,” says Ian Johnson of the Pharmacy Guild.
But doctors are finding the recommendation a hard pill to swallow.
“The ability to diagnose and prescribe is a tricky thing. I have trouble with that most days,” says Procare Health clinical director Dr John Cameron.
“And that's with being able to touch the patient, spend an extended amount of time with the patient, to weed through all of the processes that are going on.”
Both sides of the debate agree - people need to take better care of their own health.
But where to go when something goes wrong remains the choice of the individual.
3 News