What
I discovered quite quickly however, is that people and organisations
did not like my opinions, particularly if they were critical of
what they were doing.
It was obvious that people in power liked the status quo.
They liked the way things were, and they got extremely agitated
if you questioned what they were doing or how they did it.
My first task
was to question the merger between the two wholesalers API and
Sigma.
I felt that this merger was not in the best interests of the profession
or of my pharmacy in particular.
I saw it as a reduction in competition.
A reduction in the level of service and inevitably an increase
in prices.
I wrote to the ACCC expressing my concerns.
I wrote to David Young the CEO of API.
I was scathingly
criticised by the councilors of the Pharmacy Guild, for my views.
Particularly, for questioning why the Pharmacy Guild publicly
supported the proposal, despite not asking the opinion of its
membership on this matter.
I have it also on good authority that my actions nearly got me
thrown out of my marketing group.
(Any pharmacy who has been dealing with API lately will probably
appreciate mine and other's efforts which led to the merger not
proceeding)
Lately, in
this publication I have been critical about the Quality Care program.
Having recently gone through the accreditation process, I had
found obvious flaws and problems that needed to be addressed.
Instead of acknowledging the various criticisms and looking at
ways of resolving the problems, the people with a vested interest
in maintaining the program as it is, have been personally scathing
in their criticism of me.
They have accused me of making false statements vague generalisations
and of being naive.
(Maybe I am naïve in believing that $1.5M is a lot of money
to run the Quality Care program).
They have even tried to suppress me from expressing my views,
by accusing me of making slanderous allegations.
Unfortunately for these people I will not go away.
I will continue to express my views regarding problems with our
profession and our professional organisation.
These sorts
of problems are not unique to our profession.
It is endemic in the corporate world.
Company boards are not interested in what is good for their company
or what is good for their shareholders.
They are only interested in what they can personally get out of
it for themselves.
Because of this, I am worried that our Pharmacy organisations
are a reflection of this general trend.
Are the people on the Pharmacy Guild really looking after our
interests?
Every time someone dares to be critical of them they become extremely
defensive.
Is this a sign that they are greedily protecting their interests
to the detriment of our profession?
Many questions
need to be asked of our representative bodies.
For instance, perhaps councillors should disclose their pecuniary
interests.
If a councilor had shares in API, then that would obviously influence
their views on a merger between API and Sigma.
Also, perhaps the membership should be given a breakdown of how
much councilors are paid and what their expenses are.
Is it really necessary that the membership picks up the bill for
every councilor to attend the APP Conference on the Gold Coast?
We must get
out of our apathy.
We must start asking questions of our leaders.
We must start demanding more transparency.
If we don't, my fear is that one day pharmacists will find themselves
in the same position as the shareholders of HIH and One Tel.
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