Reliance on community pharmacists for health advice and help
meeting the expense of medicines is an ever-growing phenomenon around the
country as the recession vice tightens and many struggle to afford basic
healthcare.
More than 90% of pharmacists have attested to a huge surge
in the number of people seeking help for minor health ailments, advice and
support on obesity and smoking cessation, and heath screening services, since
the start of the recession.
Pharmacists say they are also increasingly offering flexible
payment options to patients, who are finding it hard to meet the cost of
private prescriptions. Many fear that cash-strapped patients may cut back or
stop taking their medication altogether.
Of course, the pharmacy sector itself is not immune to the
ongoing recession and ever-shrinking income. Not only have community
pharmacists reported that the bottom has fallen out of front-of-counter sales
in recent times, they are also coping with massive direct and indirect
reductions to their payments from the State.
The Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) has recorded job losses of
well over 1,600 staff in the pharmacy sector in less than two years, with a
rising number of small independent pharmacies closing their doors permanently.
“We’re all being squeezed, that’s the reality,” says John
Gleeson, a pharmacist on the outskirts of Limerick city. “Most definitely I’m
seeing more and more people who are not able to afford their medication,
including people with chronic conditions such as asthma or heart disease, who
are not eligible for the medical card. My reaction to that, and every
pharmacist’s reaction to that, is total horror.”
John tries to accommodate people in financial difficulty
with easy payment plans but inevitably there are people who simply do not have
the money.
“We try to help our customers in whatever way we can so that
they will be able to get the medicine they obviously need. We can set up weekly
instalments, or give them a bit of credit to tide them over. We do everything
in our power to make sure that people still receive their medication, and yes,
sometimes that means we don’t get paid,” he adds.
John runs a suburban city pharmacy, two miles outside
Limerick, in a predominantly middle class area, which he says has been
financially hard-hit by the recession. Over the past two years he has noticed a
significant and worrying shift in purchasing patterns at his pharmacy that
reflect the difficulties being experienced in the local community.
“There certainly has been an increase in people coming to me
for their OTC cold and flu remedies because they’re self-treating; it’s the
cheapest option. I’m also seeing less prescription business, particularly less
one-off prescription business, and it’s not just because they can’t afford the
price of the tablets, they often can’t afford the cost of visiting their
doctor.
“The type of business we did see a lot of, such as
children’s antibiotics and antibiotics for adults, has really declined. This
can be a positive change in some ways because we were probably over using
antibiotics, but for certain people who really need this medication but can’t
afford to see a doctor let alone buy the tables, this is a very worrying
development.”
He expresses concern that some of his regular medical card
customers have had their cards withdrawn this year.
“We are seeing more people being refused the medical cards
that had them in the past, that’s certainly an impact of the recession. Losing
a medical card has a major impact, particularly if someone is on a lot of
medication. Suddenly they’re going from paying maybe €10 per month up to €132 a
month. That’s a huge jump, and I’ve had some patient confide in me their fears
that they won’t be able to afford they medicine.
“Then of course, there are people in the same dire situation
who you don’t even get to talk to. They just don’t come in. They’re too
embarrassed.”
Kathy Maher, a pharmacist in Duleek, Co Meath, tells Modern
Medicine of Ireland that she has also noticed an increasing number of people
struggling to afford the medication they need.
“This is actually a huge trend, people are cutting back on
their medicines or trying to make them stretch,” she confirms. “I’ve noticed
this to be particularly stark for people still awaiting their medical cards.
For example, they would come into me with their regular prescription but say
they’ll just take the blood pressure tablets and go without the cholesterol
tablets until they get their medical card.
“But if there is a long delay in issuing the card, and we’ve
seen that it can be a very drawn out process, this can be very dangerous. You
can’t have patients not take their medicines so we try to help them. It can get
expensive for us, though, when you’re giving out that amount of tablets free of
charge, but people just don’t have the money to give.”
Kathy also highlights the upsurge in requests for health
advice. “We’re inundated with requests for free advice because people are
holding off going to their doctor. I’m not complaining about that, it’s what
we’re here for and that is certainly one of our key roles, but it can be
difficult sometimes when you tell them that your advice for that particular
health query is to see their GP. People are crest fallen, ‘please don’t tell me
that,’ they say, because they simply don’t have the money to spend.”
Patients are not the only ones feeling the pain of the
economic downturn. Independent pharmacies across the country are suffering too,
faced with leaner budgets, streamlined staffs, and more State cuts in the
pipeline.
In Ireland, the State pays for approx 80% of all medicines,
amounting to an annual cost of almost €2 billion – one of the
highest State pharmaceutical bills in Europe. The pharmacy sector has
already contributed nearly €400 million in savings to the Exchequer through
reductions in payments introduced under the Financial Emergency Measures in the
Public Interest (FEMPI) Act in 2009.
With the new Health (Pricing and Supply of Medical Goods)
Bill likely to pass into law by the year’s end – heralding a new system of
generic substitution and reference pricing - the Department of Health hopes to
shave €50 million off the annual drugs bill. A further cut in the cost of
medicines will be realised in a new agreement between the Irish Pharmaceutical
Healthcare Association (IPHA) and the Department of Health, which is at an
advanced stage.
Pharmacists are finding themselves caught between the
proverbial rock and hard place as they welcome savings to patients and the
exchequer while also lamenting the damaging impact cuts are having on
profitability, stability and viability of the community pharmacy sector.
“It’s very difficult, both as a small business owner who has
already been forced to close one business, and as a pharmacist who wants to
help her patients to the best of her ability. You want to do the very best for
your patients, but you’re feeling the pinch every which way,” admits Kathy, who
is Vice-President of the IPU.
In February this year, Kathy had to shut the doors of her
pharmacy in the small village of Donore, Co Meath, after a little over three
and a half years in business.
“My husband, who is also a pharmacist, and I bought the
pharmacy in Duleek six years ago, and we opened a pharmacy in July 2008 in
Donore village, but after so many cuts to our income, and having curtailed
services to the point that I worked there without a wage, we just couldn’t
maintain the business. That means an entire community now has no pharmacy
service because it was the only pharmacy in that area.”
Her IPU colleague Rory O’Donnell has had a similar
unfortunate experience. In 2006, he purchased a pharmacy in Letterkenny, Co
Donegal, but was forced to close this year.
“During the past couple of years business declined
drastically at a rate of knots, despite every effort to keep it on the road. It
was difficult, particularly for my patients and my staff,” he recalls.
His pharmacy in Gweedore, Co Donegal is largely a GMS
business, in that 90% of income is from medical card patients. “The direct cuts
imposed since 2009, which have impacted the State schemes, have hit us very hard
here,” Rory explains.
“The biggest threat to Irish pharmacy in terms of finance is
the ongoing cuts that have devastated pharmacy, there’s no question about it.
Pharmacy has survived but many are hanging on by their fingernails.
“Front-of-counter sales have also declined severely, and
recent CSO figures would back this up; front of counter pharmacy sales have
fallen probably more rapidly than most of the retail sector. That side of the
business is evaporating no questions about it.”
Kathy agrees that sales in OTC medicines, cosmetics,
toiletries and other luxury goods have dropped drastically.
“When we bought the business, the split might have been 60%
medical card and 40% front-of-shop. Our latest reconciliation a few months ago
showed that income from front-of-shop is now only 9%.”
A recent IPU Business Trends Survey revealed that six out of
10 pharmacy owners say the business environment is getting worse, and almost a
third of pharmacists report that costs have increased, due to hikes in energy
costs, waste charges, commercial rates and rents.
As President of the IPU, Rory says the challenge now is to
ensure that community pharmacy is enabled to diversify and deliver new
services, which requires a more strategic approach to be agreed for the
delivery of community based healthcare.
“We need to extend the roles of pharmacists as part of the
primary care network, introducing initiatives such as medicines use reviews,
repeat dispensing, and switching more medicines from prescription only to
pharmacy only, so that we can treat our patients in a more timely manner. These
initiatives will benefit pharmacy going forward,” he stresses.
It appears the notion of pharmacy as a recession-proof
profession has gone the way of bank job security and property portfolios. As
John points out, when the country isn’t doing well, pharmacy will feel the
impact.
“We are very heavily dependent on the Government who is our
biggest customer, and when your biggest customer is the Government, how could
you be recession proof?”
