Pharmaceutical Week throws light on chronic diseases
10 September 2015
The City of Johannesburg is using this year’s Pharmaceutical Week – which is currently under way – to increase understanding of chronic illnesses, especially among its senior citizens.
Staged under the theme “Chronic Diseases: Take Control”, the week speaks to the City’s Healthy Lifestyle Programme, which seeks to build a strong and healthy citizenry by keeping lifestyle diseases and conditions such as diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure at bay through exercise and healthy eating.
The week started on Monday September 7 and will officially reach its finale on Friday September 11. However, activities to offer and promote health education will continue until the end of September. Sipho Tsamaesi, the City’s Deputy Director of Pharmaceutical Services, says health education and promotion feature prominently in the week’s activities.
“We’re using the 2015 Pharmaceutical Week theme to guide us. We’ll be discussing the importance of understanding chronic illnesses, prescribed medications, generics and so on with our patients. Our patient-counselling sessions are conducted frequently to ensure that they (the patients) are knowledgeable about health issues affecting them,” says Tsamaesi.
Over the next two weeks Tsamaesi and his team will visit four old age homes – Xavier and Annie Burger Old Age homes in Crown Gardens, Horseshoe Old Age Home and the Riverlea Old Age Home – where chronic diseases and conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma and pain associated with arthritis and joint problems are treated.
“We’ll be discussing chronic diseases as a continuation of the Pharmaceutical Week theme at several stakeholder summits and open days, ensuring that the important messages around chronic diseases are shared with the entire community. It’s only through the empowerment of our staff and patients, through continuous education on the use of drugs and alternative treatments, that we’re able to make a difference,” he says.
Tsamaesi is based at the Langlaagte pharmaceutical depot in Region B that services 81 of the City’s 108 clinics, 13 old age homes and villages, and several private healthcare providers. The City’s other pharmaceutical depot is in Hillbrow and services the other 27 City clinics.
Pharmacy Week forms part of the City’s official health calendar. It is recognised annually as a time to celebrate the work pharmacists do and brings to the attention of the public the services on offer. It takes place during the first week of September and is supported by the national Department of Health, South African Pharmacy Council and Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa.
According to national guidelines, a chronic disease is a long-lasting condition that, though cannot be cured, can be managed. Many chronic diseases can be controlled by adopting healthy lifestyle choices such as eating fruit and vegetables regularly, engaging in physical activity, refraining from smoking, reducing salt and sugar intake and ensuring medicines are taken properly.