End the long wait of new pharmacy graduates

IT is deeply saddening that a large number of newly graduated pharmacy students in Malaysia are being forced to wait a long time for their interview with the Public Services Commission (PSC) which would decide their placement for internship.

Firstly, the Health Ministry’s stand on the dispensing separation issue, where it claims that there are not enough pharmacists to make it viable, is deplorable. Doesn’t the Health Ministry know that there are about 14,500 pharmacists in the country and about 20 pharmacy schools producing 1,200 pharmacy graduates annually?

At the moment, there is a glut of new pharmacy graduates. As parents of a pharmacy graduate, we know the actual situation. Students who graduated last year (2015) are still waiting to be called for the PSC interview and be given their internship which would enable them to work for one year to qualify as a fully registered pharmacist and obtain their annual practising certificate. Only then would they be free to work either in the private or public sector.

These newly graduated pharmacists will remain jobless if they cannot get their Provisionally Regis­tered Pharmacist (PRP) intern­ship training. Furthermore, many retail premises in the industry do not have enough facilities to cater for the large number of students seeking to do their internship. Unable to find a job related to their qualification, a lot of new pharmacy graduates are working as salespersons in mobile phone and computer outlets, supermarkets and even photography shops just to survive.

Worse still, another group of 1,200 pharmacy students will graduate this year, adding to the already large number who are in the lurch now as they can’t get their placement to do their one-year compulsory PRP training.

Why does the Health Ministry allow universities to keep on churning out pharmacy graduates when they know there are not many placements left?

Doesn’t the Health Ministry know what’s going on? If the ministry can’t handle this (if money is the issue), then it should at least offer the new graduates other alternatives, like putting them on attachment immediately with minimal pay or allowance or just shortening the internship period to six months so that they can get their practising certificate and get on with their life.

Moreover, these pharmacy graduates have already sat for and passed their compulsory pharmacy qualifying examination (Pharmacy Law), which will become invalid two years after graduating. That’s another conundrum facing them if they do not get their placement for internship as soon as possible.

Can the Health Ministry clarify its stand and provide realistic choices so that pharmacy graduates will not get a raw deal?

Apparently, medical and dental graduates are also facing the same problem of having to wait for their placement.

As such, there seems to be a rise in the number of unemployed professionals now. This is a serious matter which is also affecting the students’ morale, and there will come a time when our graduates will leave the country to seek greener pastures elsewhere (brain drain).

VERY CONCERNED AND STRESSED-OUT PARENTS

Pulau Pinang