Vaccination in pharmacies is a welcome process, considers the Minister of Health, Alexandru Rafila, who claims that the role of pharmacists in terms of the information they can give to the general public or a certain category of patients regarding vaccination is very useful.
On Monday, the Minister of Health participated online in the Conference „Prevention, closer to communities: the role of pharmacies in optimizing access to vaccination”, organized by DC News.
„It is a process that is, I think, welcome. (…) The role of pharmacists in terms of the information they can give to the general public or a certain category of patients in terms of vaccination is very very useful, because, as you know, the main source of information (…) is represented by the family doctor who advises the patient, gives him the recommendations he needs and even more so if this is also done in the pharmacy, the information that reaches the communities, to the public who are interested in vaccination, it is all the more welcome and can contribute to the success of the campaigns that we have been running for at least the last few years,” said Rafila.
In his opinion, vaccination in pharmacies can also have consequences in terms of reducing the workload at family doctors’ offices.
„The fact that once you receive a medical recommendation, the respective patient goes to the pharmacy and does not have to go back to the family doctor, he can get his vaccine in the pharmacy. So it is a matter of shortening the patient’s journey. We are not even discussing the transport under special conditions of the vaccine which, of course, could be discussed at a certain moment, because the vaccine is administered as soon as the person gets there, in the pharmacy,” explained the minister.
Rafila said that we cannot currently discuss very high numbers regarding the number of people who were vaccinated in pharmacies.
„It will be a process that will grow quite quickly, from my point of view. On the one hand, the interest of those who work in this field of community pharmacies or, please, the pharmacies that are willing to vaccinate their patients, is increasing. says that in a way these people who get vaccinated in pharmacies also become patients. On the other hand, I think it is a component that greatly conditions the expansion of the program to a certain professional training that started with the signing of this order, practically a competence in vaccinology that is being done by more and more pharmacists,” said Alexandru Rafila.
AGERPRES
