生きづらさを抱えて家族とともに暮らす子どもたちを支えるために薬学にできること～小児在宅医療における地域薬局薬剤師の役割～

抄録

Our pharmacy is a support center for home-care dispensing with a sterile dispensary, actively participating in a regional collaboration among medical treatment, nursing, and social care. We have supported hundreds of home-care patients, most of whom were elderly people living at home but a dozen or so were pediatric patients. Although the primary diseases of the children varied, what they had in common was a high degree of medical dependence and it was difficult to move them. At the same time, a caregiver had to be in constant attendance because medical care was intermittent. At the pharmacy, they faced long waiting times and received so many medications that they needed platform carts to carry them. By providing pharmacist-led home guidance on medications, we supported the pharmacotherapy of children with extreme symptoms who remained under the supervision of a physician from an advanced medical institution even after returning home. Through my experience of visiting both elderly people and children, it is clear that the home medical care system for the elderly, which assumes that the patients' physicians will visit their homes, is badly suited to pediatric patients who must visit advanced medical institutions for examinations.