© Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2018. This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Malaysian Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences Vol. 16, No. 1, 23–35 (2018) DISPENSARY SEPARATION: PERCEPTIONS OF THE PUBLIC VISITING PRIMARY CARE CLINICS IN MALAYSIA KAMAL KENNY 1 AND PRIYA MADHAVAN 2* 1 K & J Consultancy, No 13, Jalan Anggerik Aranda 31/170A, Kota Kemuning, 40460 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia 2 School of Medicine, Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus, No.1, Jalan Taylor’s, 47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia Published online: 23 October 2018 To cite this article: KAMAL KENNY & PRIYA MADHAVAN (2018) Dispensary separation: Perceptions of the public visiting primary care clinics in Malaysia, Malaysian Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 16(1): 23–35, https://doi.org/10.21315/mjps2018.16.1.2. To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.21315/mjps2018.16.1.2 Over the years, the rights of pharmacists as health care professionals have been a controversial topic in the medical feld. Pharmacists worldwide have always been independent in being able to practice medicine in their own way and have been given exclusive dispensing rights to distribute drugs and medicines to patients. In Malaysia, however, this is not the case. The overwhelming opinion has been that pharmacists are losing their dispensing rights because doctors are earning more. The current study was carried out in view of recent debates regarding the implementation of a dispensary separation policy in Malaysia. The main objective of this study was to gain an understanding of the views of and challenges experienced by the public in regards to the implementation of this type of policy. The overall results of this study show that dispensing rights are still viewed with mixed feelings. Study subjects reported believing that pharmacists were capable of dispensing medication but that they lack the confdence to make changes within the existing system. When their conditions were not severe, respondents indicated that they preferred the old system where doctors prescribe them with medicine and they subsequently visit the pharmacy. In conclusion, the majority of interview participants were of the opinion that maintaining the current system would beneft them holistically. In this study, input from a total of 929 respondents was gathered via a structured survey conducted throughout Malaysia. The study fndings were also supported by data obtained during interviews carried out with 350 informants regarding their views of the implementation of dispensary separation in Malaysia. Keywords: Health expenditure, Community pharmacy, Prescription, Medication error, Confdentiality INTRODUCTION The healthcare system in Malaysia has experienced great changes during the time since the establishment of its frst hospital – Taiping Hospital – in year 1880. Currently, there are 139 government hospitals and 2,836 health clinics serving the public as frontline * Corresponding author: Priya.Madhavan@taylors.edu.my