Guild seeks Govt cleaning support

STATE funding is needed to support pharmacies to pay for professional cleaning when a staff member tests positive for COVID-19 Pharmacy Guild of Australia Victorian Branch President, Anthony Tassone, believes.

With the COVID infection rate rising in a number of Melbourne suburbs, and the State Government ordering residents back into lockdown, Tassone told Pharmacy Daily that increased cleaning costs were adding the challenges faced by pharmacy owners in Victoria.

“There were already existing challenges with COVID, particularly depending on where your pharmacy is located,” he said.

“Pharmacies in business districts, large medical centres where doctors had practised telehealth or large shopping centre environments were doing it pretty tough in any case with COVID.

“Now with this return of lockdown provisions the business community is very concerned about how well they’ll be able to recover from a second round.

“Pharmacies that have had positive test cases amongst their staff have had to have professional external cleaners come and disinfect and sanitise the premises and are facing bills in the thousands and thousands of dollars to do so.

“These proprietors are doing whatever it takes to protect the public and reopen as soon as possible.

“The Guild really feels that the Victorian Government should provide some business support for those instances to offset the cost, because it’s a significant cost for what is an essential health service that has really stepped up from the commencement of this pandemic.

“For some proprietors it is a real challenge in this environment to be able to meet those costs.”

Tassone added that there were some “indications of potential hoarding behaviour returning”, but not on the levels seen in Mar.

He said that pharmacies were doing their best to limit instances of patients stockpiling medicines.