Andrea Carolina in Sierra Leone January – April 2011
Sierra Leone Capital: Freetown
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Population: 6.4 million2 (July 2010 estimate) Official Language: English2 Most widely spoken language: Krio2 Life expectancy at birth: 48.2 years1 Mean years of schooling of adults: 2.9 years1 Human Development index: 158 out of 1691 Current President: Ernest Bai Koroma (2007-2012)2 http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/ countries/profiles/SLE.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Sierra_Leone
Web sites of interest www.ifarma.org/web/ www.ippsl.org www.pharmacyboard.g ov.sl/web
The beginning After identifying synergistic interests, at the end of 2009, IFARMA, IPPSL and I started conversations to assess the feasibility of a cooperation project in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone is a western African constitutional republic founded as an independent nation in 1961. A civil war broke out in 1991 and was declared over until 2002, leaving over 50.000 deaths and tremendous social, political and economical challenges. Although the post-conflict era has been characterized by significant strides towards development, there are still significant indicators to improve. IFARMA is a Colombian researching institution dedicated to the evaluation of medicines role in health systems. Its aim as stakeholder of this project is to fund technical assistance through a South – South cooperation Project. IPPSL is a US based organization that targets to support the progress of Sierra Leone’s public sector development, through technical assistance, fellowships with government agencies and other international professional partnerships.
http://www.leonedirect.com/images/sierraleonemap.jpg
After IFARMA confirmed 100% funding of the Project for a 12 months period and IPPSL achieved a satisfactory answer from the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) to accept the technical support of a pharmacist at no cost for the GoSL, we could start the execution phase on 14thJanuary 2011. Once in Freetown, the Chief Medical Officer of the MoHS, Dr. K.S. Daoh, officially welcomed the project and did the technical arrangements to appoint me at the Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone .
Inside this issue: The beginning
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Pharmacy Board of 2 Sierra Leone Main activities sup- 3, 4 ported Next Steps
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Recommendations for the second quarter
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Conclusions
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Andrea Carolina in Sierra Leone
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Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone The Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone (PBSL) is the regulatory authority for medicines, related products and the pharmacy profession in the country. It aims at implementing appropriate and workable regulatory guidelines to achieve the highest practicable standards of the practice of pharmacy by professionals, and of safety, efficacy and quality of all drugs, medical devices, cosmetics and nutritional agents (collectively termed ―products‖) locally manufactured, imported, distributed, sold or used to ensure the protection of the public health as envisaged by the Pharmacy and Drugs Act 2001.
My official posting as technical assistant fellow of the PBSL was on 26th January and I was deployed to the Policy, Standards and Practice Department (PSPD). Additionally, I’m supporting the Drug Information and Pharmacovigilance (DIP) Department and the Registrar’s Office, as well. The PSPD was created in 2010 and its objectives are to ensure that the PBSL maintains updated laws and related policies (internal and external) that will enable the Pharmacy board to operate effectively and efficiently as a National Regulatory Authority and also to develop technical proposals to raise funding for the PBSL.
Staff strength: 125 (including employees, board members, interns (6)). PBSL Headquarter: in Freetown Districts Offices: Bombalí, Bo, Kenema and Kono Offices at the official ports of entry: 2 (Lungi Airport and Queen Elizabeth II Quay )
General Organogram of the Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone
Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone, Head Quarter— Freetown
―For the past few months I’ve found Carolina to be hard working, dedicated and just in her approach to work. She has shown a high degree of professionalism, honesty and her relationship whith her pers has been exemplary. Her presence within the management team has added value to our work‖ Pharm. Wiltshire C.N. Johnson— Registrar of the PBSL
Andrea Carolina in Sierra Leone
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MAIN ACTIVITIES SUPPORTED Identification of Management Challenges. Advocacy for the inclusion of Adverse Drug Reactions
forms in the Data Collection Reporting Tools. Development of documents to be presented to the Minister of Health and Sanitation. Finalization of the Draft version of the Strategic Plan 2010—2015. Reactivation of Internal Departmental Meetings at PSPD. Development of surveys about ―Safety of Medicines‖, ―Rational Use of Drugs‖ and ―Counterfeit Medicines‖. Continuous Professional Development (CPD) activities. Encouraging International Women’s Day celebration. Identification
of Management Challenges: All 2010 Heads of Department (HOD) meetings Minutes were reviewed: one report was delivered to the Registrar and all HOD’s and one panel was held, to agree on the best way to overcome the challenges. The review was welcome by all the team. To start with the implementation phase one chart was developed to make follow up at every HOD Meeting and the Registrar asked PSPD team to include this review within the activities of Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E).
Finalization
of the Draft version of the Strategic Plan 2010—2015. Now what is left is coordinating the Workshop with all HOD to gather the final inputs and consolidate the final version.
At the PBSL Booth with the team — Makeni Trade Fair Advocacy
for the inclusion of Adverse Drug Reactions forms in the Data Collection Reporting Tools The Ministry of Health and Sanitation is leading the development and unification of Data Collection Reporting Tools for the Routine Health Information System (RHIS), which are the formats that will inform the national and district level about Health Services Delivery status under a monthly basis. PBSL formally requested to consider the ADR form that the PBSL is already using as one of the tools of the Data Collection Reporting Tools. Our request was successfully accepted.
Development
of documents to be presented to the Minister of Health: At the PSPD, I was part of the team that developed the documents ―PBSL-Annual Report Executive Summary 2010‖, ―Briefing on Drug Regulation in Sierra Leone & The Pharmacy Board of the Ministry of Health and Sanitation‖ and ―Summary of Interventions for which Ministerial Approval is sought for Implementation to Strengthen Drug Regulation and Protect Public health in 2011‖
Reactivation
of Internal Departmental Meetings at PSPD: PSPD is now leading internal departmental meetings performance, following one tool and strategy that I developed and helped to implement.
Development
of surveys about ―Safety of Medicines‖, ―Rational Use of Drugs‖ and ―Counterfeit Medicines‖: At DIP, we developed these 3 questionnaires which were given to the community at the Trade Fair held on February at the National Stadium. Right now we are processing the data in order to have an initial scope about community awareness of these topics and to propose activities that can be addressed to overcome the challenges that will be evidenced by people’s answers.
With PBSL staff celebrating International Women’s Day
Continuous
MAIN ACTIVITIES SUPPORTED (cont.)
Professional Development (CPD) activities: As part of the PSPD team, I had the opportunity of traveling to Makeni, Kenema, and Bo with the aim of performing the 1st quarter session of (CPD) 2011. The aim of these sessions is to encourage pharmacy professionals (pharmacists and pharmacist technicians) to keep updated on current trends of cross topics of our profession.
Encouraging Women’s Day Celebration: PSPD
coordinated and led, for first time in the PBSL, International Women’s Day Celebration. All the Staff took part on the celebration which was focused on emphasizing women importance at work environments. We gave to every staff one chocolate, one ribbon and one written message (English & Krio version).
¡NEXT STEPS!
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE SECOND QUARTER It is my goal to focus our support in four strategic areas: Developing and improving management tools that will help, from the inside, to improve PBSL performance to achieve its Public Health Role. Support activities leaded by DIP and PSPD Work on the development of proposals to raise funding with the aim of increasing PBSL incomes and therefore, improve PBSL performance. Ensure that there will be Knowledge transfer for every process, developing team work focus for every initiative.
In addition to the follow up of the process described previously, I’m going to focus my efforts on: Elaborating a feasible and comprehensive Performance Tracking Table: State House (National President Office) has selected 6 governmental institutions for the second phase of a pilot project that consist on tracking closely their performance. PBSL was selected for this second phase and, therefore, we have design a feasible and comprehensive Performance Tracking Table that will be the tool of the State House to assess PBSL performance for 2011. Pharmacy and Drugs Act 2001: it is one of our main objectives to finalize the revision of the current law for Medicines and Pharmacy profession in order to update it and give to the Regulatory Authority the legal framework needed to meet its mission statement, improving the role of medicines in the health system and, as the final target, public health indicators of Sierra Leone. Once we finish the revision, the next step will be approval by the Board Members, Legal advisers and Parliament.
CONCLUSIONS This amazing project has already invited me to overcome encouraging professional and personal challenges and I feel that the impact on PBSL work started from the beginning. Thanks to IFARMA and IPPSL, for funding this project, for all the technical support, for making sure that the experience is going fine, for your confidence. I am extremely fortunate to be part of this unique mission. Words like open, welcoming, receptive, encouraging and collaborative are not enough to describe the way that PBSL opened its doors to my experience as International Health Fellow. Thanks to the Government and people of Sierra Leone, to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation and to the Pharmacy Board of Sierra Leone. I thank to my family and friends for your love, support, counseling and company.
The path and mutual learning process are just starting.
Andrea Carolina Reyes Rojas—International Health Fellow Phone: +23276920110 E.mail: acreyesr@ippsl.org - acreyesr@gmail.com