Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Epp, Denise A.
• Tanno, Yoshirou
• Brown, Anita
• Brown, Bob

Titel

Pharmacists’ reactions to natural disasters: From Japan to Canada

Ist Teil von

• Canadian pharmacists journal, 2016-07, Vol.149 (4), p.204-215

Ort / Verlag

Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications

Erscheinungsjahr

2016

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Okotoks has a Health and Wellness Centre that provides public health services and urgent care services. The nearest hospitals are Oilelds General Hospital 22 km to the west in a town called Black Diamond and the South Health Campus hospital 21 km to the north in Calgary.10 There are fewer than 10 pharmacies in Okotoks, and one of them is the Shoppers Drug Mart, which is a mere 1 km away from the Wellness Centre in the south part of town. The pharmacy is owned and run by a husband and wife pharmacist team, [Anita Brown] and [Bob Brown] (Photo 6). Anita has had her prescribing authority certication since 2008. The Browns had no emergency plan for their pharmacy in place before disaster struck (personal communication, Anita Brown, April 7, 2015). Change in functionThe Health and Wellness Centre in Okotoks that oers urgent care services became overrun with desperate patients needing medications and medical help on Friday, June 21, so they redirected the lighter-needs patients to the Shoppers, where Anita Brown could assist with her prescribing authority. Being short staed, the team of pharmacists and assistants at the Shoppers streamlined their roles so that they could help as many patients as possible, but the line up to receive medications soon reached the door of their pharmacy. They needed to speak with each patient to determine who needed immediate care and which medications were needed, as most did not have charts or records there or their medications with them. As long as the computer system was available, they could process the patients who were in the health system. When the power in Okotoks went out for a few hours early Friday aernoon, the team had to keep working but maintain protocol for safety and care. As people lined up outside the store waiting for the electricity to return, the pharmacists also moved outside and continued to talk with the patients to determine their needs and work to help those who were scared and desperate for help. It is difficult to prepare a pharmacy for an emergency situation by stocking up on medications or even making a list of necessary medications. Preparing a kit of medications, other than anaphylaxis kits, may be impossible because of the shelf life of various medications, potential lack of refrigeration for certain medicines and not knowing which medications should be stockpiled for the area. It cannot be predicted who will be able to be at the site to help out, but access to sta is a necessity. Consideration also needs to be made for PTSD and understanding the psychological ramications as patients and sta work through the disaster and its recovery process. This is why the Browns believe that the best way to prepare for a potential disaster is to ensure that pharmacists are educated for working through a disaster, that the daily functioning of the pharmacy and patient records are always maintained and that patient care is kept in the forefront of practice.