Anthropological titbits

Anthropological titbits

A pharmacist inspecting the rash on the wrist of woman, across the counter, asking when the rash began and then she gives a cream, making sure the patient knows to complete the course even after the rash disappears “Keep putting it on for one more week, otherwise it will come again”. The pharmacist diagnoses and prescribes medication. She is at once a physician and a pharmacist, when confronted by patients who probably cannot afford to go and see a private “general practioner.” However, this pharmacist, a German Namibia lady, works at a private pharmacy in the centre of Windhoek, a far cry from the long queue of people waiting to receive their medication at the government health facility hospitals. Does her free time play a role in assenting to the clients request to become a patient of sorts? My friend from high school Mekonjo works at the pharmacy of the central hospital, which is a stones throw from my ‘computer cluster’ at the ministry of health. He says that “pharmacy is a dead end job”. To him there is nothing stimulating in this job. Probably his job does not require him to be both doctor and pharmacist, but would he like to do that?
What are the consequences for health care when private pharmacists play two roles, both doctor and pharmacist? Are they able to fill in the gap in between a full day’s wait to see a doctor at a state hospital and the expedient service at the physician consulting room? How different is the role they play from that of patients who go to a private physician to merely request a prescription for their auto-diagnosis? Are they just an extension of people’s desire to self-medicate? In the case I observed, the woman with the rash did not know what she needed to get, but the pharmacist did. Therefore, in a sense, the pharmacist is filling in the gap between private and public health institutions.