The Pharmacy Guild of Australia, Queensland Branch President, Professor Trent Twomey, said today’s statements by the AMA Queensland are unfounded and unsupportive of a modern and efficient healthcare system, that’s supportive of advancements for women’s health.
“The old scare campaigns voiced by some doctors are anti-patient and do reputational damage to their own profession. It’s disappointing that some doctors still maintain an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mentality based on their hip-pocket. Patients should be the centre of our health system, but unfortunately some doctors believe they are the centre of the health system. The on-going attack on fellow primary healthcare professionals, health and allied health practitioners is frankly ridiculous.
“Queensland should be at the forefront of the best primary healthcare practices. The Urinary Tract Infection Pharmacy Pilot – Queensland (UTIPP-Q) is yet another example of safe and effective innovation in the primary healthcare model. We make no apology for putting patient-centred primary healthcare first.”
“Although the pilot is new for Queensland, other OECD countries, including New Zealand and the United Kingdom, have had pharmacists prescribing treatment for Urinary Tract Infections for many years.”
“As trained primary healthcare professionals, we need to join forces and work together to protect vulnerable community members when they need urgent treatment and advice, particularly for this serious health issue. If left untreated, bacteria from a Urinary Tract Infection may travel to the kidneys causing a kidney infection, damage and even failure, so it’s important that women can seek treatment as early as possible1. In 2018 alone there were over 20,000 potentially preventable hospitalisations in Queensland due to urinary tract and kidney infections2.”
“This pilot puts the patient in the centre of care and doesn’t remove access to general practice. In fact, by following clinical guidelines community pharmacists will be in an ideal position to refer necessary patients to their general practitioner when treatment may have otherwise been delayed. In a time when some general practices have moved to a full telehealth model and are focusing on their long term chronically ill patients, it is no wonder that Consumer Health Queensland is also backing this common sense move to improve support primary healthcare delivery.”
“The pilot supports patient referrals to GPs, if needed, to ensure continuity of care, where a complex Urinary Tract Infection is identified. The pilot is focussed on non-complicated Urinary Tract Infections and as such, the appropriate clinical protocols form part of the training and pilot protocols. Service provision is well within the scope of practice for community pharmacists.”
“Community pharmacists are conveniently located with extended opening hours and no appointments necessary. 95% of consumers live no further than 2.5km from pharmacy. This means that the one in two women who may experience a Urinary Tract Infection over their lifetime3 can be seen and treated immediately to avoid further complications. As primary healthcare professionals, we need to work together for the community, not against each other.”
“I call for the AMA Queensland to stop these old scare campaigns. Community pharmacists want to work with you as primary healthcare professionals. Over the next two years we’ll see the pilot’s successful results do the talking,” said Professor Twomey.
References
1 Health Direct. Urinary Tract Infection (UTI). Available at: https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/urinary-tract-infectionuti#:~:text=If%20a%20UTI%20is%20left,kidneys%20to%20the%20blood%2Dstream
2 AIHW data, Potentially preventable hospitalisations, 2017-18, Queensland. Available at: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/primary-health-care/potentiallypreventable-hospitalisations/data
3 Kidney Health Australia Fact Sheet: https://kidney.org.au/cms_uploads/docs/urinary-tract-infections-fact-sheet.pdf
