- Discount pharmacy chain concerns
- Cutting stores to counter competition
- Duty of care first concern
- Bargain Chemist director defends business model
Discount pharmacy chains were operating like supermarkets, loss-leading prescriptions in order to pull people into stores, Waverley Pharmacy manager Peter Barron said.
Mr Barron is a radio pharmacist on Otago Access Radio and served on the district health board for nine years.
"You can’t afford to run a pharmacy as a dispensing-only pharmacy."
Discount pharmacies such as Chemist Warehouse and Bargain Chemist had strong buying power, which could be good for customers’ wallets.
But they did not charge patients the $5 co-payment for prescription medicines, effectively subsidising taxpayers.
"They are getting volume and are entitled to do what they like," he said.
"But it does pose a risk to suburban and rural pharmacies."
An increasing emphasis on getting products into patients’ hands as cheaply as possible threatened their wellbeing, he said.
"All the evidence is clear that does not equate to people taking their medication," Mr Barron said.
Research showed 70% of patients did not take their medicine as prescribed, he said.
Barrow-loads of unused medication were sometimes removed from people’s homes after they died.
"They don’t take their medicine because they haven’t agreed that they should have them, or something’s happening to them they weren’t expecting, or nobody has bothered to explain to them what they are supposed to be doing," Mr Barron said.
He was critical of the discount chains and the SDHB, saying both were keen to have product delivered as cheaply as possible.
"Unfortunately the focus has been on quantity and price, not on quality of service.
"As a healthcare system we are supposed to be in the business of delivering healthcare to people."
Mr Barron was sure pharmacists at businesses such as Bargain Chemist and Chemist Warehouse met their professional obligations, but customers would be a number, not a person, he said.
"It is all a bit like a supermarket.
"There is a commercial imperative. They have got to turn a dollar."
In contrast, community pharmacies developed relationships with their customers, he said.
He questioned how well pharmacists at discount chains were being paid in New Zealand.
The Australian-owned Chemist Warehouse paid $A28 an hour for pharmacists at stores across the Tasman, he said.
Payscale.com estimated the Chemist Warehouse paid from $29-$39 an hour in New Zealand.
