New pharmacy opens at national cancer care centre

The National Center for Cancer Care and Research (NCCCR) yesterday launched a new pharmacy at its out-patient section as part of its ongoing expansion plans. Some of the features of the new pharmacy include five consultancy counters serving more than one patient at the same time and providing private medication counselling to patients; comfortable patient waiting areas with separate seating for males and females; and electronic number system for prescriptions. The pharmacy was being considered more advanced achievement in contrast to the previous layout which had only one window available to serve patients and limited waiting and seating area. In the new pharmacy layout, medications are displayed on rotating shelves to be easily accessible by pharmacy technicians and to allow for quick preparations. NCCCR and Heart Hospital pharmacy departments’ director Dr Manal Zaidan said the payment for medications would also be possible within the pharmacy soon thus providing a one stop shop. There is also a new patient education tools to support pharmacists in patient education. She said that comments and suggestions of patients, caregivers as well as pharmacy team had been considered while designing the pharmacy. “The key success factor for this project is working as multi-disciplinary team during the planning and implementation phases. And the team consists of pharmacists, project management engineers, facility designer, fire and safety, infection control and health information system,” she said. There are a total of 15 pharmacists and 15 technicians presently working both at the OPD and in-patients pharmacies at the NCCCR, she said. The NCCCR executive director Nagi al-Mannai said that the new pharmacy was one of the major expansion plans the hospital is presently undergoing. “Our efforts at improving services at the centre is continuous and we have already laid out objectives and goals of some of the projects we have to achieve within the next three-four years,” he said. According to him, among the plan was to increase number of beds. “We hope to improve the in-patient wards with the planned increase in number of bed spaces. We had last December brought in a new urgent care centre, which means that our patients need not go to the Hamad Hospital’s emergency department any longer,” he said. NCCCR pharmacy department assistant director Dr Sumaya al-Saadi explained that the underlying principle for all pharmacy practice was ensuring safe and effective care for patients, which will be better achieved in the new pharmacy layout. “We made sure that the new layout is designed to provide patients with the best care. In order to prepare the pharmacy staff to achieve this objective, a competency examination was conducted for pharmacists to ensure that they are qualified to provide patients-centred care,” she said. Earlier, a number of staff as well as project team members were presented with recognition certificates.