BPS President says ‘Better pay required’

Local pharmacists are overworked and underpaid.

That’s the contention from President of the Barbados Pharmaceutical Society (BPS), Derek Catlyn.

Addressing the congregation of the Calvary Moravian Church on Sunday, as he officially declared the start of Pharmacy Week 2017, Catlyn maintained that the salaries of pharmacists are not commensurate with the level of service they provide to their clientele, a problem he said, a number of other professions are no doubt facing at this time. With that in mind, the President said he feels strongly that the salary structure needs to be improved.

His comments came as he noted that even as there is a need to see an upward movement in their pay, it is imperative that efforts are made to ensure that the requisite environment to promote and ensure productivity also exists.

One way of addressing the issues of productivity and wages he suggested, would be to implement appraisal systems both in the private and public sectors, utilising various indicators such as punctuality, the number of sick days taken, the number of prescriptions processed and the number of patients who receive counselling, to help employers better evaluate the job performances of the pharmacists working for them.

Catlyn went on to say that he would also like to see a greater number of organisations in the public and private sectors engaging more in team building activities. Such, he lamented, have been sorely lacking in
the local workforce to date.

“Persons need to come together in order to learn how to work and function as a team. There is no ‘I’ in team, so everybody has to get together… this could help to motivate pharmacists,” he stated.

The BPS head explained that such team building activities in their sector would go a long way in helping to boost productivity in the workplace and reduce employee turnover. Moreover, he said it would allow pharmacists to make an even more meaningful contribution, to assist in improving the quality of service to patients. (JRT)