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Nurul Falah Eddy Pariang, a pharmacist and Head of executive board of the Indonesian Pharmacist Association delivered his expertise –as the Expert presented by the Government– at judicial review session on Act of Health Workers, Thursday (16/4) at Plenary Room, the Constitutional Court Building. Photo PR/Ganie

 

 

Nurul Falah Eddy Pariang, a pharmacist and Head of executive board of the Indonesian Pharmacist Association (Ikatan Apoteker Indonesia) said that the pharmacy work should be conducted by pharmacy workers who have skills and authority to do so.

At the further session on Act Number 36 Year 2014 of Health Workers, Nurul explained that the pharmacy service had evolved from drug oriented service to comprehensive service included drug service and clinical pharmacy service (passion oriented), for the purpose of improving patients’ life.

“Therefore, pharmacy workers should be aware and understand the possibility of medication error occurred during the service. Pharmacy workers need to identify, prevent, and overcome the drugs-related problem,” said him at case session number 16/PUU-XIII/2015  led by the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court (Ketua Mahkamah Konstitusi) Arief Hidayat at Plenary Room, the Constitutional Court Building, Thursday (16/4). 

Pharmacy workers, according to Nurul, should also communicate with other health workers in determining the therapy to support rational medicine usage. They demanded to monitor the medicine usage, evaluate, and record every activity in their practice. To do so, a standard of pharmacy service is required.   

He added, pharmacy workers demanded to improve their knowledge, skills, and attitudes in order to directly interact with the patient. The forms of interaction were for example in the medicine informing and patient counseling. “So when conducting the pharmacy job, it is closely related to patient safety,” added him.

Therefore, Nurul argued, the Government was supposed to regulate the authority from each pharmacy technical workers based on their education level, which are Pharmacy Bachelors, Pharmacy Diplomas, and Pharmacy Vocational Students or its equivalents. However, he assessed that the reward needed for vocational school-graduates health workers who still studied. One of the rewards was, they remain given the opportunity to be pharmacy workers until 2018. ”In consideration that Pharmacy High Schools or its equivalents still fulfill its promise that their graduates remain to be pharmacy technical workers,” said him.  

Moreover, started in 2015 Student Intake (penerimaan Siswa Baru), Pharmacy High Schools should be delivered information to their student applicants that their graduates would be health worker assistants, as stipulated on Act Number 36 Year 2014 of Health.

And last, for the graduates which at the time the Act of Health Workers stipulated hadn’t been Diploma 3 graduates up to six years later, he urged the government to undertake program through education and or affirmative as in the National Qualification Framework (Kerangka Kualifikasi Nasional Indonesia). 

Improving Qualification

Meanwhile, Head of Planning and Human Resources Enforcement of Health Center, the Development and Human Resource Empowerment of Health Agency (Kepala Pusat Perencanaan dan Pendayagunaan Sumber Daya Manusia Kesehatan, Badan Pengembangan dan Pemberdayaan Sumber Daya Manusia Kesehatan) Achmad Soebagyo Tancarino said that recently there are 146.542 pharmacy technical workers that graduate below Diploma 3. They are work at hospital, community health centers (pusat kesehatan masyarakat –puskesmas), and other health service facilities throughout Indonesia.   

Soebagyo as witness presented by the Government assessed, the qualification of pharmacy workers should be improved in National Qualification Framework, so they could be health workers. According to him, there were several schemes to fulfill the qualification. First is regular scheme through diploma III education for employees, second is through Open University (Universitas Terbuka) by remote lecture. “Remote lecture could be conducted without leaving their job,” explained him.

The last, Subagyo said, the qualification improvement could be done by using past learning recognition, through college which was given permission by the Dikti to do so.  

At the first session, a teacher of Ditkes AD Pharmacy High School Heru Purwanto as Applicant requested to the Constitutional Court (Mahkamah Konstitusi –MK) to cancel Article 88 (1) and Article 96 Act of Health Workers because it harmed his constitutional rights as a pharmacy teacher.

As Article 88 (1) Act of Health Workers notes:

“Health workers graduated under Diploma III who had been practiced before the enactment of this Act, are still granted the authority to conduct their practice as Health Workers for period 6 years after this Act enacted.”

While Article 96 Act of Health Workers notes:

“This Act applied on the date of enactment. For public cognizance, ordering the Act enactment shall be published in the State Gazette of the Republic of Indonesia (Lembaran Negara Republik Indonesia). “

According to Heru, the provision was detrimental because high-school graduates cannot be health workers. It was considered contrary to the Constitution, particularly on Article 27 (2), Article 28C (1), and Article 28D (2). (Lulu Hanifah/Prasetyo Adi N.)

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