Even if I'm told to increase patient-facing tasks...

Do you remember the day when the novel coronavirus began to spread, and masks disappeared from the streets?

At that time, we all thought,“It should go back to normal soon.”

However, years have passed since then, and that “someday” has changed its form and continues to linger in pharmacies today.

There is no cough medicine.
There is no expectorant.
There is no acetaminophen.

Now that the COVID-19 pandemic is over, the distribution of these drugs is certainly approaching normal.

But that is not the end of it.
Now, even ointment containers are hard to come by.
There are still many drugs that are unavailable, just in different categories.

“I wonder if something unexpected will become hard to get next time”

Every time I have that premonition, I get a headache.

This is a story of endless “firefighting” that we, who work in pharmacies, are dealing with.

The endless chain of firefighting

Pharmacies today are like a “battlefield out of ammunition.”
Wholesalers are desperately searching for stock. Patients are frustrated by the reality that they cannot get their medicine.

It is hard for the wholesalers, hard for the patients, and hard for us on the front lines.

Everyone is suffering.
No one is to blame, yet everyone is exhausted.

What used to be a “temporary supply shortage” has now become“a daily life where we don't know when it will be resolved.”

Daily inventory checks, selecting alternative drugs, bowing our heads to wholesalers, and explaining to patients.

What we are accumulating is not just inventory preparation. It is like desperately building a “breakwater” every day to prevent the collapse of the front lines.

The violence of the ideal of “shifting from object-oriented to patient-oriented”

Recently, we are often told:
“Pharmacists should shift from object-oriented tasks to patient-oriented tasks.”

Every time I hear those words, I feel uneasy.

Medicine doesn't arrive, there are no containers, and we don't know when stock will run out. How can you tell us to focus on “patient-oriented tasks” on such an unstable infrastructure?

The reality of pharmacies today is that we are forced to spend 80% of our energy repairing the foundation of “object-oriented tasks” while it is crumbling.

It is easy to talk about ideals. But in the current field, “engaging carefully with patients” is not just about “explaining how to take medicine” to an anxious patient in front of you.

Accepting the anxiety itself of patients who are worried that “there is no medicine.”

Making last-minute adjustments to somehow protect the patient's life until the medicine arrives.

Isn't this the true “patient-oriented task” that is being carried out on the front lines now?

The moment of relief disappears quickly

When the missing medicine finally arrives, or when we manage to secure ointment containers.

For that moment, we feel relieved. However, it disappears immediately.

Because in that empty space, something else that “became unavailable before we knew it” will enter.

This “replacement of relief with anxiety” has become a daily routine, and we rush to the next adjustment without even a moment to rest. We bow our heads to complaints from patients, feel discouraged by supply shortages, and yet we must open as usual the next day.

Is this daily life being fairly evaluated?

You are defending the breakwater

If there are colleagues who are equally exhausted on the front lines right now, I want to tell you this.

The “inventory management” you are doing now is not just administrative work.

It is an extremely high-level and noble“patient care” to protect the lives of patients and the infrastructure called a pharmacy.

There is no need to blame yourself for “not being able to do patient-oriented tasks.” You are undoubtedly a hero who is defending the breakwater of the front lines in this unstable era.

In a few years, this era might become a memory we talk about, saying, “That was a tough time.”

But for those of us living in this moment, please don't push yourself too hard.

The system is immature, and the front lines are at their limit.
Even so, if you were able to reduce someone's anxiety by even one bit today, I think that is something to be proud of.

Thank you very much for your hard work today.

Believing that the day will come when this “firefighting” ends, please praise yourself, even if just a little, for now.