Patient Safety Spotlight interview with Roohil Yusuf, Global Pharmacy Adviser at Save the Children international

Summary

This is part of our new series of Patient Safety Spotlight interviews, where we talk to people about their role and what motivates them to make health and social care safer.

Roohil talks to us about the vital role of pharmacists in making sure medications help patients, rather than causing harm. She highlights the global threat of substandard and counterfeit medicines, the need to improve access to medicines and the importance of having pharmacists 'on the ground' to help patients understand how to take them.

About the Author

Roohil is a pharmacist and Global Pharmacy Adviser for Save the Children International. She has a particular interest in access to medicines.

Questions & Answers

Hi Roohil! Tell us who you are and what you do

My name is Roohil Yusuf and I’m a pharmacist currently working as a Global Pharmacy Adviser for Save the Children International. My role involves supporting our health services in different countries to provide safe pharmaceutical services.

My day to day work is varied - I support pharmacy colleagues in different countries with medicines procurement, implementing guidelines and addressing challenges affecting pharmacy services. I also provide training on our guidelines and procedures. Zoom has been a really helpful development as it makes accessing training much easier for our in-country teams. We also host discussion groups on Zoom - this morning colleagues from Bangladesh gave a presentation about how they have overcome recent patient safety challenges. Another aspect of the team’s work is conducting audits to monitor our pharmacy services against specific standards, and this helps us tailor the support we provide in different locations.

How did you first become interested in patient safety?

I have seen the many ways that medications can cause harm and am passionate about the vital role that pharmacists play in patient safety. Although medicines are amazing and save so many lives, if they aren’t from a safe source and used safely they can have negative consequences.

I believe giving people advice on how to safely use medicines and advocating for the importance of patient safety are really important aspects of a pharmacist’s role.

Which part of your role do you find the most fulfilling?

I was recently lucky enough to visit some of the services we provide in Nigeria and South Sudan, where I met some of the patients. It was very fulfilling seeing the impact our work has on real people. It’s also a great privilege to work with the medical teams and pharmacists on the front line and see their dedication to providing safe medical services.

What patient safety challenges do you and your team face at the moment?

In the global health field, there is a lack of pharmacists working in many areas, and this has an impact on patient safety. Pharmacists enable people to access medicines, but they also provide safety controls, making sure medications are used appropriately and are of high quality.

Substandard and falsified medicines are a significant global patient safety threat - the World Health Organization (WHO) has found that 1 in 10 medicines in European countries is substandard or counterfeit, and this figure is likely to be higher in other countries.

Substandard and falsified medicines take a range of forms - they may not have adequate quality checks performed by the manufacturer to ensure they have the right amount of active ingredient, or they may be deliberately counterfeit. I have read reports on medicines that have been tested and found to have no pharmaceutical ingredients in them at all - it’s just junk in tablet form. WHO has also released reports on medications that have caused harm as they contain unknown toxic ingredients. 

At Save the Children, we are always monitoring these risks to make sure our medicines are safe. We buy medicines for our health services from known sources, check suppliers have quality processes in place and try to buy directly from WHO and other audited organisations. But we also need pharmacists in every location where medications are dispensed to safeguard patients from these risks.

What do you think the next few years hold for patient safety?

The global medical team at Save the Children is quite new and it has been exciting to see the impact we have made on patient safety so far. But there is so much more that we want to accomplish; in the next few months we hope to focus more attention on looking directly at dispensaries and our direct health services.

This will involve visiting our locations and making sure staff are properly trained, have adequate support and are able to pick up prescribing errors and side effects and report them effectively.

If you could change one thing in the healthcare system right now to improve patient safety, what would it be?

According to WHO, over two billion people worldwide don’t have access to medicine, which is a basic human right. So if I could just change one thing, I would make safe medicine accessible to everyone.

Are there things that you do outside of work which have made you think differently about patient safety?

I have two young boys and when they have been unwell and prescribed medicines, I have identified medication errors. Being able to protect my family in this way makes me realise that if I didn’t have my pharmacy training and knowledge, those errors would go unnoticed.

I try to raise awareness amongst my friends and family about the importance of asking questions and taking time to read medication information leaflets. I have recently started writing blogs about patient safety and medication to raise awareness of the issues.

Tell us one thing about yourself that might surprise us

I had malaria multiple times growing up - a couple of times every year! That shocks people because we often see the facts and figures about how deadly malaria is. But I had access to treatment, and that made all the difference. It just shows that if the right medicines are available, they can make a huge difference to children's lives and survival rates.

Related reading

Patient Safety Spotlight interview with Josie Gilday, Global Medical Adviser at Save the Children International
WHO - Announcing World Patient Safety Day 2022 (4 March 2022)
WHO - WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge: Medication without harm (15 May 2017)
WHO - Medication safety webinar series: engaging patients and families for medication safety (8 March 2022)