Stark shortfall of pharmacists
Pharmacies in Southland are cutting hours and considering closing their doors because they’re struggling to find pharmacists.
It’s a national problem and pharmacist Steve Jo is worried that unless things change, young people won’t see a future for themselves in the profession – especially in New Zealand.
He opens his pharmacies to students and interns but says many want to swap industries or head abroad as soon as they finish their qualifications.
‘‘They can see how hard we work and how much we get paid, and it just doesn’t make sense to them,’’ he said.
Countdown Pharmacy in Invercargill has reduced its weekday hours and closed over weekends because it can’t find staff. That leaves just one city pharmacy open on a Sunday.
Jo co-owns five pharmacies in Gore, Riverton and Invercargill and often drives between them to give dispensary staff a break. He considered closing one branch when he couldn’t find staff.
Despite offering salaries above the industry average, he received no responses to job advertisements.
Jo was an early adopter of robotic dispensing; more recently, he has been training other staff members as accuracy check technicians to take pressure off his pharmacists.
‘‘We’re lucky that we’ve had staff motivated to upskill themselves,’’ Jo said.
But his staff members are tired, he said. ‘‘Some of them are broken. They’re looking at career changes. I fear that we’re going to keep losing people when the borders open.’’
Susan Zhen is a final-year student at the University of Otago and has already signed on to complete her internship in Australia, where she’ll earn more and pay less in internship fees.
She’s been studying full time for four years and will have to do a year-long internship, but she’ll be paid the same as a tradie who has been earning from day one of their training and who isn’t carrying student debt, she said.
During her four-week placement in Southland, each of the pharmacies she worked at was struggling with staff shortages, she said.
Zhen believed addressing wages for pharmacists would help keep them in New Zealand.
‘‘It’s an important role in health, but pharmacists are overworked and underpaid.’’
Pharmacy Guild chief executive Andrew Gaudin said regional pharmacist shortages were now being felt nationwide. On top of normal services, pharmacies had taken on Covid-19 vaccinations and rapid antigen test supervision and distribution while dealing with reduced staffing because of isolation requirements.
‘‘The guild has been raising the issue of pharmacist shortages with the Government and Ministry of Health officials for many years,’’ he said.
The Ministry of Health’s acting deputy director-general of health workforce, Andrew Wilson, said its own analysis conducted last year forecast pharmacist numbers to increase by 500 by 2031.
For context, about 200 pharmacy students graduate in New Zealand each year and the ministry is expecting 50 pharmacists to join the local workforce per year for the next nine years.
The ministry valued the significant role that pharmacists played in the health system, Wilson said. It was working to address workforce shortages by funding internships, investing in postgraduate training and supporting graduates on their path to registration, he said.
Wilson said the ministry had funded a Covid-19 pharmacist relief workforce via the Pharmacy Council.
‘‘The ministry is also working with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to ensure critical health workers, who are eligible, can enter the country under current border settings,’’ he said.
However, retail pharmacists are not listed on Immigration New Zealand’s long-term or regional skills shortage lists.