It
always irks me somewhat to see patients ask for a discount on items
for their conditions of hardship, or a request for temporary credit.
You then usually see such people lighting up a cigarette on the
way out of the pharmacy, or on their way to the bakery because they
fancy a vanilla slice.
The pharmacy bill, while usually paid, is not an issue of immediacy.
I imagine that Woolworths will have a not have a credit policy.
We also have
a customer who parks her motorised scooter out the front of our
shopping centre entrance every Thursday and holds her hand out
with her prescriptions and waits for one of our shop assistants
to leave the pharmacy floor to take the prescriptions from her.
What happens next is quite comical.
She gets out of her scooter and walks across the way to the newsagency
to buy her powerball ticket, chats briefly with the newsagency
owner, walks out and sits in her scooter, waiting for the pharmacist
to bring the medications out to her.
Would Woolworths go above and beyond and do the same?
As a pharmacist,
my biggest concern is what sort of an impact will Woolworths have
on the infrastructure of pharmacy.
Will Woolworths pharmacists have to do 300 prescriptions in a
day?
Will restrictions be placed upon how much time a pharmacist may
spend counselling patients?
Will Woolworths lobby the respective boards in each state and
territory to allow technicians to hand out schedule three medications?
And lets look
at the impact on traditional pharmacies.
Front of shop and dispensary lines down massively.
Increases in phone calls from Woolworth customers who "just
picked up a prescription from Woolworths but weren't able to talk
to the pharmacist, and is unable to get through to them on the
phone".
Increases in dosette and webster packs to be done, as they are
time laborious and have a low profit margin.
Pharmacy in
Australia at present is far from perfect.
While, yes, we do have to make a dollar at the end of the day,
greed can be our own worst enemy.
As pharmacists (whether pharmacy owners or not) we must remember
to keep the patients best welfare at heart.
We must concentrate on helping our patients achieve the greatest
health outcomes and ensure the quality use of medicines.
This is the easiest way to ensure that Woolworths fail in their
attempts to branch into pharmacy.
If Woolworths are to match it with us, we must make them do something
that they have so far been unable to do: care for the people who
are purchasing their wares and place the patients best interests
first.
If Woolworths
run their pharmacy operation as they run their supermarkets, petrol
stations and liquor stores, it would make more sense to allow
Ivan Milat to become a Contiki tour guide than it would to allow
Woolworths to own and run pharmacies.
Next
article in Woolworths series------->
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