In the aftermath of a historic health crisis, Doctor Jean-François Lemoine receives prominent personalities from the world of health. Today, the pharmacist Gilles Bonnefond, president of the Union of pharmacists’ unions, defends step by step the place of his profession in the organization of city medicine.
“Pharmacists have been entrusted with the continuity of care!”. On the role of his profession during the Covid-19 crisis, Gilles Bonnefond is inexhaustible: “It was we who reassured patients, renewed treatments, educated people on barrier gestures and distributed masks to healthcare professionals, which was not the easiest thing to manage…”
If the president of the Union of community pharmacists (USPO) is very proud of the results of the action of his colleagues, he is now determined to claim his due. “We must give pharmacists their rightful place in the organization of city medicine, rely on our profession to coordinate”, he says, not hiding his disappointment at not having been invited to the Ségur de la santé. “We can see that everything revolves around the hospital, for us, it is a lack of consideration…”
He will not go further in the criticism, but behind the smiling face and the singing accent of this man from the south, himself a pharmacist in Montélimar (Drôme), hides a firm resolution to give all the space that, according to him, his profession in the health of tomorrow deserves. “Patient demand is changing,” he explains, developing a very well-argued analysis of the distribution of roles for the future of city care. A distribution in which he recognizes the central place of doctors — while inviting them to reinvent their model — by positioning themselves at their side for all matters relating to patient support and follow-up, screening and prevention.
The place of innovation
A vision which, for Gilles Bonnefond, is also based on the place to be given to innovation. Starting with the implementation of the famous DMP, the shared medical record, which is struggling to establish itself as the main tool in the care pathway and of which he declares himself a supporter. A modernism that also encourages him to want to shake up “overly complex prescription and dispensing rules”again referring to the experience of the health crisis during which more freedom had been given to pharmacists on these subjects “without this leading to overconsumption”.
On the other hand, don’t talk to Gilles Bonnefond about a modernity that would be called Amazon: “They only distribute, we support the patients!”. On this subject, suddenly, the smile of the boss of the USPO who claims his full membership in the health professions seems to tense.
.
