Shocked over treatment by ministry officers

THERE are over 13,000 pharmacists in Malaysia with over 1,000 new graduates joining the workforce annually, resulting in the Pharmacy Division of the Health Ministry becoming very well staffed.

Unfortunately, this increased staffing has not resulted in greater productivity but instead has produced unjustified and incorrect actions from its pharmacy inspectors.

For over 25 years, my wife (a pharmacist) and I (a cardiologist) have been running our two retail outlets, one a pharmacy and the other a cardiology clinic under a single company. Since the pharmacy is sited in a larger building, medical and drug supplies of the clinic are stored at the pharmacy premises.

This has not been a problem until recently when we were told by an enforcement officer that our pharmacy is engaging in wholesale trading without a wholesale licence. The ministry’s new pharmacy enforcement officers have decided that the pharmacy is somehow selling supplies to the clinic even though there is no commercial exchange of goods or money.

In fact, our two outlets have always been compliant with the law, producing a single set of accounts for the joint company to all appropriate government authorities. Four months ago, together with the pharmacy licence, the ministry enclosed a letter instructing that the signboard of the pharmacy be altered to reflect its status as part of a parent company. Now we are accused of being a wholesaler merely for being part of a larger parent company.

The pharmacy is further alleged to improperly label dispensed drugs, without producing any proof of when this was to have occurred. The ministry’s pharmacy enforcement officer somehow feels that the new, unused and unfilled labels they saw at the pharmacy was evidence that medicine was dispensed without proper labelling!

When we wrote an official reply refuting the allegations and explaining the actual state of affairs, we received a telephone call from the same enforcement officer threatening to withdraw our retail pharmacy licence. If the Health Ministry truly feels that storing goods of the same company at different premises equals wholesale trading, then we are prepared to face this allegation in a court of law.

Threatening to withdraw the practicing licence before proving any offence must surely be an abuse of power and authority.

Has the ministry too many pharmacy enforcement officers to train them properly or are enforcement officers told that their word is the law. Are pharmacy enforcement officers trained to threaten and bully when shown to make inappropriate and wrongful accusations?

Pharmacy division officers feel that issuing practicing licence is their discretionary right, having the power to withhold it whenever displeased. In fact, issuing a pharmacy licence is actually their duty, being the entitlement of one who is qualified and has been practising lawfully.

Ministry officials are paid from the tax returns the government earns from the profit of private enterprises and therefore government officers have an obligation to assist private companies, not to harass, threaten and bully them. Our duty is after all to humbly cooperate in the service of the public.

DR ONG HEAN TEIK

Past-President Penang Medical Practitioners’ Society

Past-Chairman, Malaysian Medical Association, Penang branch