DEPARTMENT OF PHARMACY – Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital
Functions of the EFSTH Pharmacy
Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital pharmacies typically provide medications for the hospitalized patients and outpatients visiting the hospital free of charge.
The Hospital pharmacies usually stock a larger range of medications, surgical, other pharmaceuticals and hospital consumables. More Specialized medicines would be found in the EFSTH pharmacy than in the community pharmacies.
The Hospital pharmacies provide a huge quantity of medications per day to the wards and outpatients clinics within the hospital
Units of the pharmacy department
The EFSTH pharmacy department consists of
- the Main Pharmacy and
- Four Satellite Pharmacies located in busy clinical departments
The Main Pharmacy
The main pharmacy building houses the following units
- Main drug store,
- Substore,
- Surgical store,
- Outpatient dispensary
- Inpatient dispensary
- Local eye drop production laboratory
- Extemporaneous production lab/area
- Two lecture halls and offices for the senior staff of the department.
- Functions of the different units under the main pharmacy
Main drug store
The main drugstore receives, monitor and distribute all medicines supplied from the Central Medical Stores.
The drugstore also receives all medicines and other pharmaceutical materials donated to the hospital.
The drug store is managed by a qualified dispensing assistant and supervised by a pharmacy technician and pharmacist
Substore
The Substore receives drug supplies from the main store and supplies requested medicines to all the wards and the satellite pharmacies.
This Substore helps to reduce the excess workload on the main store
The surgical store is managed by a qualified dispensing assistant supervised by a pharmacy Technician and a pharmacist.
Surgical store
The surgical store supplies all surgical and X-ray materials to all the clinical departments and wards. The surgical store received supplies directly from the Central Medical Stores.
The unit is managed by a qualified Dispensing Assistant and supervised by the Pharmacy Technician and pharmacist.
Outpatient dispensary
The unit dispenses medicines to all outpatients visiting the hospital. The dispensary is headed by a pharmacy technician and supervised by a pharmacist.
The unit operates three shifts and 24/7 working hours; shifts are 8am to 2pm (morning) 2pm to 8pm and 8pm to 8am.
Inpatient dispensary
The unit dispenses medicines to all patients admitted in the hospital. Hospital staff personal prescriptions are also dispensed at the unit. The inpatient dispensary is headed by a pharmacy technician and supervised by a pharmacist.
Local eye drop production laboratory
The eye drop production laboratory prepares some extemporaneous eye drops using a standard WHO developed formular and procedures. All staff are trained are trained on how to prepare these eye drops.
The type of Eye drop produce depend on the availability of galenicals usually supplied by Sight Savers/ Sheikh Zayed Regional Eye Center and the hospital.
The following eye drops; Gentamicin eye drop, Chloramphenicol eye drop, sodium cromoglycate eye drop, zinc oxide eye drop, Atropine eye drop, pilocarpine eye drop..
The two lecture halls
The two lecture halls are used for the training of Pharmacy Technician and Dispensing Assistants and for continuous education training of our staff.
The four satellite pharmacies
The four satellite pharmacies are
- Paediatric pharmacy
- A&E pharmacy
- IDC pharmacy
- Polyclinic pharmacy
Paediatric pharmacy
Situated at the paediatric department. Responsible for dispensing prescriptions from the paediatric outpatient and paediatric and neonatal wards. Most of the medicines dispensed in syrups. Some extemporaneous formulations of some not available syrup are also done there.
The day to day dispensing and formulations at the unit is perfomed by two trained dispensing assistants and supervised by a pharmacist.
All pharmacy students and intern pharmacists must pass through the unit during training to learn skills or develop their skills on the preparation of extemporaneous medicines.
A&E pharmacy
The unit dispenses medicines to accident and emergency patient both inpatients and outpatients.
The day to day dispensing at the unit is performed by two trained dispensing assistants and supervised by a pharmacists
Infection Disease Control (IDC) pharmacy
The unit handles infectious disease prescriptions from the IDC clinics, both inpatients and outpatients. The most commonly dispensing medicines are the ones used in the management of HIV/AIDs commonly refer to as- the ART program.
The supplies of medicines to this unit come from the Global Funds stores at The Central Medical Stores.
The IDC pharmacy has its own store and store keeper, managed by a qualified dispensing assistant. All global fund supplies to the hospital are monitored regularly by the global fund officers from the Global Fund secretariat.
The polyclinic pharmacy
Dispenses medicines prescribed from all the clinics at the polyclinic.
The day to day dispensing of medicines at the pharmacy is done by trained dispensing assistants. The unit is supervised by an onsite pharmacy technician supported by a pharmacist from the main pharmacy.