TRAINING FOR CHINESE MEDICINE DISTRIBUTORS NEEDED

According to the statistics from the Department of Health's Committee on Chinese Medicine and Pharmacy, out of around 3,200 Chinese medicine clinics across the island, less than 10 of them have trained pharmacists when it comes to distributing the medicine.

In order to better protect the medical quality for the public, the CCMP is demanding Chinese medicine distributors to undergo a 50-hour mandatory professional training session.

Currently, besides qualified Chinese medicine practitioners, western medicine pharmacists who have received 16 hours of Chinese medicines training can also act as Chinese medicines distributors in the clinics.

However, legislators are questioning the medical quality provided by those who are so called "personnel capable of identifying Chinese medicines", as well as more distributors who didn't even receive the training.

Chairperson of the Committee on Chinese Medicine and Pharmacy, Huang Lin-huang, said that less than 10 clinics out of the 3,210 Chinese medicine clinics across the island have qualified Chinese medicine pharmacists because most clinics just can't afford them.

Averagely speaking, the monthly salary of a qualified pharmacist is around 50,000 to 60,000 NT dollars.

And due to the low reimbursement payment offered by NHI, Chinese medicine clinics can only receive 20 NT dollars per patient from NHI, which means a reimbursement payment of 16,000 NT dollars for treating 800 patients per month.

Even though it takes only 16 hours of training for western medicine pharmacists to become qualified distributors of Chinese medicines, few existing distributors did really receive the training, while most Chinese medicine clinics are willing to hire them at lower wages.

Regarding the situation, legislators are now asking the Department of Health to curb the problem by amending regulations and the whole system, to further ensure the medical quality of Chinese medicine clinics.

In response, minister of DOH Chiu Wen-da said that the ministry is planning to set up a system to train qualified pharmacists of Chinese medicine by the end of this year.

CCMP also said that the committee plans to start with demanding all Chinese medicine distributors to receive a 50-hour professional training after it discusses with Chinese medicine practitioner and pharmacist groups to set a timetable for the training.

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