COVID should kill double dispensing
EFFORTS to stem medicines hoarding triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic should leave arguments for 60-day dispensing “dead in the water” Pharmacy Guild of Australia National Vice President, Trent Twomey (pictured), believes.
Twomey told delegates watching the live-streamed Australian Pharmacy Professional (APP) Conference on Fri, that Australia would be facing a severe medicines shortage had the Guild not successfully urged the Federal Government not to follow the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) recommendation to increase maximum dispensing quantities.
“Sixty-day dispensing, I believe, is dead in the water,” he said.
“You can’t have two different arms of the one department, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) coming out yesterday [Thu] and saying we can only dispense one month per patient, and then you’ve got another area of the Department of Health coming out and saying we need to give two.
“Those two things can’t be true at the same time.”
Twomey and Guild Tasmanian Branch President, John Dowling, called on the Federal Government to sign “a fair community pharmacy agreement (CPA)”.
“There is a fair agreement that has modest investment to address two core issues that Australians want to see from their Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) as part of the 7CPA, [one of] which is an increase in convenience, and an increase in affordability,” Twomey said.
“It is sitting with the Department, and the Department could get in their car, drive up to Parliament and they could present it with a positive recommendation for the Minister to sign now.
“I understand the Minister is under a lot of pressure, so is the
Prime Minister, so are the Premiers and Chief Ministers, and the State and Territory Health Ministers, so are a lot of pharmacists - we’re all in this together.
“We’ve not asking for anything for ourselves, unlike other professions who are being opportunistic and asking for things for them, we are doing anything but, we’re talking about our patients.”