Page 14 - covid-19-pandemic-malaysia-journey

Chapter 2

Pharmaceutical Care Services

Breaking the boundaries

During the MCO period, Malaysians were encouraged to stay at home and reduce
unnecessary hospital visits. Due to the movement restrictions during the MCO, some of the

essential pharmaceutical care services in MOH facilities, such as ambulatory pharmacy,

Medication Therapy Adherence Clinic (MTAC) and Home Care Pharmacy Services (HCPS),
were disrupted. As a result, several measures were taken by the PSP to ensure the continuity

of pharmaceutical care services. For instance, patients with appointments for medication

refills or any other pharmaceutical services were given longer appointment dates. The
medication supplies to patients were also increased to two-month supply or more whenever

possible to reduce the patient loads and crowds at the pharmacies in both MOH hospitals
and health clinics.

Another initiative to facilitate the supply of refill medications and avoid crowding in the
MOH health facilities was the Pharmacy Value Added Services (VAS). During the MCO period,

patients were encouraged to utilise the various VAS available in the MOH facilities such as

the Pharmacy counter appointment-based system, Medicines by Post (Ubat Melalui Pos,
UMP), Drive-through Pharmacy (Farmasi Pandu Lalu), Locker4U and Integrated Drug

Dispensing System (Sistem Pendispensan Ubat Bersepadu, SPUB). Information about VAS

provided by the MOH was actively promoted to the public and advertised via television,
radio station, social media networks, newspapers and online articles. To improve the uptake

of UMP, the MOH has decided to bear the delivery charges of UMP from 5 April 2020 to 30

Jun 2020. Following the subsidy of delivery charges and various promotional activities, the
usage of UMP has increased tremendously, from 42,422 medication parcels in year 2019 to

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