Sir, - Your report headed "Pharmacy profession accused of limit on entry" (The Irish Times, June 1st), failed to inform your readers of the consensus reached by participants at the Higher Education Authority's forum on the need for pharmacy graduates - that there is a critical shortage of qualified pharmacists entering the Irish workforce.
The problem is most acute in the hospital sector, where some 25 per cent of posts remain unfilled and where there are examples of hospitals failing to recruit even one pharmacist. Hospital pharmacists are responsible for the whole chain of medicines management, from their procurement, storage and distribution through to advice on their use and administration to hospital patients. It is clear, as I informed the forum, that hospital pharmacy services are not always being delivered in an equitable fashion, through no fault of the profession, but because of the lack of suitably qualified and experienced pharmacists in Ireland. It is regrettable that your column should just refer to the presumably more "newsworthy" issue of competition. - Yours, etc.,
Andrew Barber, President, HPAI, Pairc na gCaor, Moycullen, Co Galway.