A Haitian, a Malaysian, and an American walk into a pharmacy…
Lucien Lee is pursuing his masters degree in development practice at Columbia University and is now volunteering at CMMB’s Bishop Joseph M. Sullivan Hospital in Côtes-de-Fer, Haiti. He is serving as a public health specialist in the hospital and is working to expand the capacity of our pharmaceutical services there. Here he explains how teamwork in Haiti is making medicine more accessible.
Getting sufficient resources is always a challenge in Côtes-de-Fer, Haiti – both in terms of material resources and human resources. Several types of medications are not available at the Bishop Joseph M. Sullivan Hospital, and CMMB is still trying to recruit a full-time pharmacist for the hospital.
(From left to right) Darcelin Jean of Haiti, Maggie Sant of the United States, and Lucien Lee of Malaysia
Together with Mercy Health pharmacist Maggie Sant and CMMB pharmacist Darcelin Jean, we took a stock count of the pharmacy inventory to see what was available, and what was needed. With this information, we compiled a list of priority medications for the pharmacy, and proposed some essential drugs to procure. Maggie also provided a list of formulary substitutions that the pharmacy assistants can refer to, in case certain drugs go out of stock.
A half-day training was held for the assistants at the pharmacy on standard dispensing techniques and best practices, such as requesting that the patients repeat the dosage instructions to ensure they fully understand them. The proper way of filling in the paper record of each drug’s existing stock was reviewed, and a monthly inventory activity was proposed to the assistants.
We also suggested updates to the existing paper record of stock management, and helped draft the template document to keep track of daily and monthly consumption.
Our resources may be limited, but our tenacity won’t be!
Members of the Bishop Joseph M. Sullivan team work together to find solutions.