Why over four years to prepare an internship programme?

Dear Editor,
The Pharmacy Council of Guyana made it a law in 2003 that all graduates of the University of Guyana (UG) who have completed the Bachelors of Science degree (Pharmacy) must complete an internship programme of not less than six months before obtaining a licence to practise as a professional Pharmacist.
On January 02, 2017, all pharmacists who had graduated in the 2016 Bachelors of Science degree (Pharmacy) programme at the UG should have started their internship. The Pharmacy Council was not prepared, so we were told that we needed to pay a registration fee of 00 before February 27, 2017, and provide certain information and a job application to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, so that the internship programme could commence on March 6, 2017. The Pharmacy Council has not yet issued a formal letter or email to the registered pharmacy interns to inform them of the date, time and place when the internship will start.
The Pharmacy Council, which is a body corporate, has not organized an internship programme. Under The Pharmacy Practitioner Act 2003 -Part 11- Establishment and Functions of the Pharmacy, the Council is expected to:
Establish, maintain, and develop standards for the practise of pharmacy;
Publish, distribute or disseminate, in any manner as the Council thinks fit, literature and information relevant to the pharmacy profession.
We are being pushed around by the Council. We ask why it is that since the 2003 Act, absolutely nothing has been put in place. People’s graduate lives, livelihoods and careers have been messed up!
We ask for an urgent audience with the Honourable Volda Lawrence, Minister of Public Health, to enable us to arrive at a solution. We are also requesting, in light of the unnecessary delay in us being granted our licence to practice, that we be financially compensated by the Pharmacy Council for the unnecessary loss of earnings and career advancement. We have spent four years of our lives studying hard to be pharmacists because we have a passion for healthcare provision. The Pharmacy Council has, by their unconscionable delay, prevented better provision of healthcare services to those patients in need of health care.

Sincerely,
Graduate student