Pharmacy knocked back at Smithfield

PLANS for a new pharmacy attached to the Trinity GPs surgery have been knocked on the head by the Federal Health minister amid allegations existing chemists in the area objected to the set-up.

Graham Stevens applied for permission to set up the business, however the application failed the pharmacy location rules laid out by the Australian Community Pharmacy Authority (ACPA).

Mr Stevens said since the new doctor’s surgery opened near Trinity Park there was great demand in the area for a pharmaceutical service.

“All the residents and the doctors are going nuts as they do a lot of painkillers and injections and you need a pharmacy next door,” he said.

“And I know other pharmacies have objected to it.

“All the locals want it, we have hundreds for petitions from doctors and patients.

“It’s so amazing that this can happen when there is such a demand.”

Mr Stevens already owns and operates a pharmacy at Kewarra Beach.

Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch said the application breached the rules outlined by the Australian Community Pharmacy Authority and needed to be overturned by the Federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt.

“On this one there is a bit of infighting going on between different pharmacies and I am not going to get involved in their fight,” he said.

Mr Entsch said he had been lobbied from both the propharmacy movement and those who are opposed.

The ACPA told the Cairns Post the regulation states one pharmacy cannot be within 1.5km of another pharmacy.

“Whether it was too close to the other pharmacies or because it was attached to a medical practice that didn’t have enough doctors to trigger an approval I don’t know,” a spokesman said.