Humanitarian Responses: the role of the pharmacist

HUMANITARIAN RESPONSES: THE ROLE OF THE PHARMACIST CONFERENCE

19 March 2016, BSMS

Humanitarian situations are sadly all too familiar, whether they are a result of natural disasters or man-made crises. Responses to these events often include the provision of medicines. Alternatively medicines may be supplied as part of longer term support for development. But what is the role of the pharmacist when it comes to humanitarian responses?

A joint conference between the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Humanitarian Aid and Response Network and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Global Health Research at BSMS aimed to help answer that question.

This conference was generously supported by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the student elective company Work the World.

Speakers included:

Ash Soni (Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) President)
Helen Gordon (RPS CEO)
Jon Barden (Humanitarian and Civil-Military Advisor, Department for International Development. Jon was the UK staffing lead for the DfID Ebola Response)
Mick Deats (Group Lead on Substandard, Spurious, Falsely Labelled, Falsified and Counterfeit Medicines, World Health Organisation)
Trudi Hilton (Pharmacy Consultant for Pharmaceutical Supply Chain in Humanitarian Settings)
Emma Foreman (Lead pharmacist for Cancer and Research and Development at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals. Emma worked for Voluntary Services Overseas for two years in Ghana)

Speaker biographies >

Attendees had the opportunity to:

hear from pharmacists with international experience in the field of humanitarian work and experts from WHO and DfID
learn about the challenges that medicines pose and pharmacists face in humanitarian responses
network with other pharmacists interested in humanitarian work
participate in a scenario-based workshop.

Download the conference brochure >