‘The time to scale up pharmacists' contributions is now’

At last year’s World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva, a new delegation arrived. The International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) sent a large delegation to the meeting in 2024, advocating for pharmacy’s role in global public healthcare. While the organization had participated in the WHA in years past, 2024 was the first time that FIP, which represents about 4 million pharmacists, scientists and academics around the world, sent such a sizeable delegation. The federation went to Geneva again this year to ensure that the future of the world’s healthcare includes pharmacists.Among the delegation was Sherif Guorgui, the president of the community pharmacy section of FIP and co-CEO of OnPharm United. The main conversation that the FIP wanted to start, Guorgui says, was “ensuring that pharmacy is looked at as the key, essential part of the solution to ensure the viability and sustainability of healthcare systems globally.” “Through people-centred care services, pharmacists make a significant contribution to improving NCD outcomes. Strengthening the role of pharmacists in the prevention and control of NCDs is critical to achieving global health goals and reducing their burden worldwide,” the FIP wrote in a statement. “The time to scale up pharmacists' contributions is now.” Specifically, Guorgui says that the FIP went to Geneva to advocate for the integration of pharmacists into countries’ national healthcare strategies—including for mental health, pandemic preparedness and in antimicrobial stewardship. “Really, just ensuring that pharmacy is part of the solution,” he says. A big part of ensuring that pharmacists can be empowered to reach their full potential and have a massive, positive impact on healthcare worldwide, he says, involves "property investment and recruitment policies” for pharmacists. For Guorgui, getting this message out to world leaders is “extremely important” because of the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic—lessons that the FIP and Guorgui want to remind healthcare leaders and policymakers of. “Our current care system is not the way and it is not sustainable,” he says, adding that the pandemic exposed the gaps in the healthcare system. “Pharmacy is able to step up and fill a lot of those gaps.” Meeting with healthcare stakeholders from around the world was fascinating, he says, and this year, he felt as though pharmacy led the conversation. Around the world, Guorgui says, governments have given pharmacists expanded scopes of care because they are beginning to see the value in giving pharmacists a bigger role in public health. “We are able to provide care at the right time, at a convenient time and at a fraction of the cost to the government,” he says. “While the pandemic was a trigger to a lot of bad, for pharmacy, it was a catalyst to get the profession moving forward and it’s important to remind stakeholders about what we’ve done and more importantly what we can continue to do.”

‘The time to scale up pharmacists' contributions is now’

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