Pharmacy dispute

Tim Robbins

Would it possible to discuss this debacle in this forum?
It concerns Irish politics and the Irish economy after all.

Here's my view based on the latest news that the IPU are advising their members to go back to work.

Harney as done well. I don't think the IPU had a leg to stand on once the:
1. Public realised many were in breach of contract
2. Public realised boots weren't closing.
3. Injunctions came from the courts.

All the IPU / Pharmacists did was:
1. Alienate customers.
2. Play into their competitors hands.

The entire industry needs reform. I would hope we'll pay manufacturers the same as other EU countries and prescribe more generics now.

Anyway, I think Harney has shown the other Ministers an example of how to take on a vested interest and put the country first. We need more tough decisions to get this country out of this flipping recession.

Your comments...

irish_bob

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Would it possible to discuss this debacle in this forum?
It concerns Irish politics and the Irish economy after all.

Here's my view based on the latest news that the IPU are advising their members to go back to work.

Harney as done well. I don't think the IPU had a leg to stand on once the:
1. Public realised many were in breach of contract
2. Public realised boots weren't closing.
3. Injunctions came from the courts.

All the IPU / Pharmacists did was:
1. Alienate customers.
2. Play into their competitors hands.

The entire industry needs reform. I would hope we'll pay manufacturers the same as other EU countries and prescribe more generics now.

Anyway, I think Harney has shown the other Ministers an example of how to take on a vested interest and put the country first. We need more tough decisions to get this country out of this flipping recession.

Your comments...

harney has won a victory for the tax payer and its not often someone in goverment achieves that

Riskymove

irish_bob wrote: »

harney has won a victory for the tax payer and its not often someone in goverment achieves that

I agree and hope she gets credit for it

Ther eis a large amount of anti-harney comment on these forums but I think she continues to try and tackle the poison chalice of health...unfortunately there is an awful lot more to tackle

Its full of vested interests which need to be confronted

Boskowski

Riskymove wrote: »

I agree and hope she gets credit for it

Ther eis a large amount of anti-harney comment on these forums but I think she continues to try and tackle the poison chalice of health...unfortunately there is an awful lot more to tackle

Its full of vested interests which need to be confronted

I agree, despite all the 'slagging' she gets - mostly over her physical appearance which is silly - she actually seems competent and capable. I'm beginning to like her.

booboobear

I agree fair play to her.
Some of the unions in the country need to be taken down a peg or two.
Certain unions are far to strong and need to be broken, especially some of the civil servant ones.

Riskymove

booboobear wrote: »

, especially some of the civil servant ones.

a complete misconception...the civil service unions are by far among the weaker unions in public sector

the most powerful unions are nurses, doctors etc

Omar comin

One of the most embarrasing epidoses was last week reported on the RTE news.
I thnk it was a head of unicare, or one of the pharmacies that stayed open, complaining that his shop was way too busy, so busy in fact he had to close it for a few hours and tell the people to go away. Next clip had a spokesman for Boots, (an english guy in fact), saying how he has never seen business so high in all his years here. he will be moving staff around different shops, and getting with suppliers so that he could deal with demand and make even higher PROFITS!!
Shame on the irish pharmacy, in these times complaining about business being up.

P. Breathnach

booboobear wrote: »

I agree fair play to her.
Some of the unions in the country need to be taken down a peg or two.
Certain unions are far to strong and need to be broken, especially some of the civil servant ones.

Don't let the facts get in the way of a good rant. The Irish Pharmacy Union is a "professional body", not a trade union. It represents business interests rather than employee interests.

irish_bob

realcam wrote: »

I agree, despite all the 'slagging' she gets - mostly over her physical appearance which is silly - she actually seems competent and capable. I'm beginning to like her.

shes not hated because shes fat , shes hated because she was a member of the pd,s who our overwhelmingly left wing media despised , this in turn conditioned the majority of people into disliking her and the pd,s , dont get me wrong , shes been a failure for the most part in health but thier are ministers in other portfolios who were just as bad yet nowhere near the venom was directed towards them as harney

Robbo

Tim Robbins wrote: »

The entire industry needs reform. I would hope we'll pay manufacturers the same as other EU countries and prescribe more generics now.

The chances of Harney going after the wholesalers and drug companies are non-existent. That's why she took the popular, easy option and went for the pharmacists.

It was reported that allowing generic substitution would save something in the region of €83 million. Of course the drug companies would then throw a mickey fit and up sticks for somewhere in the Eastern Bloc since all we're still good for is burying tax liabilities.

Oh celebrate this Pyhrric victory for the public have been mollified and it appears that some fat cats have got it in the neck.

irish_bob

Riskymove wrote: »

a complete misconception...the civil service unions are by far among the weaker unions in public sector

the most powerful unions are nurses, doctors etc

the pharmacists union are not particulary strong and unlike nurses , pharmacists are not sacred cows , nurses barely need a union such is the love the public have for them

EastWallGirl

This is why I hate Mary Harney.

http://www.indymedia.ie/article/85212

marknine

Good for harney. Its a long long time since anyone in this government did anything for us. The question is why this was not addressed along time ago. Ten years ago (if not longer) people complained about the price of meds in this country, but the politions refused to do anything. The greed of pharmacists and wholesalers is a scandle in this country. I am from a very small town in north Donegal and our pharmacist (who local people depend on) clossed his doors and spoke out at the injustice that his bussiness was going to suffer. The same pharmacist drives a brand new four wheel drive every year and the cost of one these cars would be anough for the yearley income of 2 or 3 familys. The same familys that have been conned into paying for there over pirced over marked up medications. Things must change.

Flan45

I've seen first hand the margins pharmacists have been making from my work and they are money making machines.

Most pharmacists have been expecting this to change for a few years, I think it's the level of the reduction that has shocked them though. The whole industry will need to change, newly qualifieds and locums will have to accept a big reduction in salaries.

I'm sure there will be a resolution reached on the fees but the gravy train is over.

Tim Robbins

Flan45 wrote: »

I've seen first hand the margins pharmacists have been making from my work and they are money making machines.

Most pharmacists have been expecting this to change for a few years, I think it's the level of the reduction that has shocked them though. The whole industry will need to change, newly qualifieds and locums will have to accept a big reduction in salaries.

I'm sure there will be a resolution reached on the fees but the gravy train is over.

I see no reason why a pharmacist should be getting any more money than any other profession which requires four years study.

Even to work in a lot of sciences you need a masters or phd and you still wouldn't earn anything near a pharmacist.

SeaFields

Good idea to have this debate here or at least another debate on the issue on boards. There is a thread in the biology and medicine forum but to be honest I have never seen such biased moderating in my time using boards with most contributors being from the medical profession and the results can be seen in the way that debate is going. I didnt contribute to it.

The guy from Boots referred to above is Rhys Iily -the head of Boots Ireland. There was a good contrast in that report alright but later the the nine o clock bulletin there was a mention that some Boots customers had a 24hours wait for prescriptions. Made him look like a bit of a tool afterwards!

Fair play to Harney. There was a breakdown on primetime of the amount the pharmacists were getting for each prescription and it was scandalous. Taxpayers were paying for that and it was a pure gravy train.

One thing tho...all sides in this dispute were guilty of using the most vulnerable in society for their own gains. Thats sickening in itself. :mad:

Flan45

One thing tho...all sides in this dispute were guilty of using the most vulnerable in society for their own gains. Thats sickening in itself.

I don't think Harney / The HSE had a choice, they had to ensure that the system is changed.

SeaFields

Ah Flan, there is always a choice in that situation. I think we all here heard of people in there 70's or 80's, people on long term medication or people with serious illnesses that couldn't get their medication without queuing for hours or travelling large distances.

Flan45

You're right and those people have my sympathies but I think it was time to do something about the fees pharmacists were receiving. I get the impression the IPU believed they would withdraw services and that the HSE would cave in before it took effect or very soon after.

Tim Robbins

SeaFields wrote: »

Good idea to have this debate here or at least another debate on the issue on boards. There is a thread in the biology and medicine forum but to be honest I have never seen such biased moderating in my time using boards with most contributors being from the medical profession and the results can be seen in the way that debate is going. I didnt contribute to it.

It was a heated topic thread alright. I also thought the modding was very biased but I didn't have the energy to go to feedback so I thought it would be better to have a discussion in another forum. It is a political ecnomic issue just as much as a scientific one.

eamonnm79

Yeah i have to admit, this needed to be done.
Thepharmacists were on a gravy train with biscuit wheels and it was all at the Publics expence.
They will still do very nicely unless they are new and have paid way too much for a property.

Thumbs up to Harney and the HSE on this one.

Thumbbs down on their unwillingness to get the overpaid consultants to get real on their Salary expectations!

SeaFields

eamonnm79 wrote: »

They will still do very nicely unless they are new and have paid way too much for a property.

I think where pharmacists will be hit badly is in the rural areas. They would have an elderly customer base there and I imagine that a lot of their income must come from medical card dispensing. Such pharmacies are not going to be making money from other usual stuff in a chemist i.e. the profit Boots make from their own brand items.

In those rural areas they are providing a valuable community service but the way they went about this protest I think many of their customers will stay away. Locking up shop in isolated towns and villages was business suicide and downright disrespectful to their customers who I believe must have been using their service for years..

Prime Mover

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Anyway, I think Harney has shown the other Ministers an example of how to take on a vested interest and put the country first. We need more tough decisions to get this country out of this flipping recession.
Your comments...

I don't agree Tim. I think this was a totally unnecessary dispute. Harney has been in Health for years now and she should have sorted this sector out a long time ago.

If she had been on top of her brief she would have already negotiated lower factory prices, restructured wholesaler and pharmacist margins and redesigned the sector to match the model in other Euro countries where the pharmacists play more of a recognised primary care role. This would have resulted in much bigger savings and an improved health system. However, what do we have now? Pissed off patients, pissed off pharmacists, the same high factory prices and the same confusing margin model just with a big chunk out of it.

This should have been sorted out before they even deregulated the sector. Now you will have lots of new businesses going bust. Where is the good in that for the economy?

ABEasy

I think she has done a good job since she's been in health. The opposition she faces is immence. She is trying to cut out waste and costs in the HSE, this is always going to face opposition as healthcare and cutting costs don't go together.

On another topic, the gov. proposed de-regulation of pharmacies a few yrs back (at the same time as the de-regulation of taxis, also suggested de-regulation of pubs), did they ever do this and if not, why? If they had would this protest have happened.

Springmaus

Yes, they deregulated the industry. This has led to a high number of pharmacies opening up in recent years with many non-pharmacist owners. The public had called for what many seemed to call a 'cartel' to end and seemed happy with the decision. Now everyone's complaining that there are too many pharmacies.

In other European countries it is a requirement for pharmacists to be owners of pharmacies. Personally I'd prefer if that were still the case here - I'd rather not open my own pharmacy (I'm a pharmacy student but I hate matters of business) but I'd prefer to work under a pharmacist boss so that I wouldn't experience a conflict of interest between making sales and patient interest where some products are concerned.

And I agree with Prime Mover. Mary Harney takes a pretty belligerent attitude to all health professionals when it suits her and is rarely willing to hear their point of view with regards to how best to provide services. I think she, like many members of the public, assumes that we're all greedy elitist careerists rather than people who wanted careers in healthcare because we like helping people. I originally defended her to many people because I figured she had the nation's interest at heart and that that should be supported. When I saw the way they acted towards the junior doctors a while back I realised that her approach is less than noble.

In my opinion, pharmacists have the potential to shave a lot of money off the drugs bill through different services they could provide (that are provided in other countries). This, or other money-saving measures, have never been explored (to my knowledge). If we had some decent long-term health planning in this country, with valued input from health professionals, there'd be greater overall efficiency, better patient service and greater job satisfaction among the health service workers.

Springmaus

Tim Robbins wrote: »

I see no reason why a pharmacist should be getting any more money than any other profession which requires four years study.

Even to work in a lot of sciences you need a masters or phd and you still wouldn't earn anything near a pharmacist.

Since you asked, I didn't understand this either until I started talking to health professionals. One of the main reasons in defence of doctors' salaries is the responsibility they hold. If they make a mistake, they'll be sued - it was pointed out to us in college by a lawyer that Ireland is one of the most litigious countries in the world with respect to health professionals and that we'd want to be bloody careful. As a scientist you hold a lot of responsbility (and I'd be the first to say scientists in this country get a terrible deal) but it's not as much as the responsibility for the life/death of a patient that a pharmacist would have.

In fact, since people in this thread have been giving out about pharmacies turning away business, the main reason for doing this was safety concerns - if something goes wrong with a prescription the pharmacist can be struck off the register. Or worse, a UK pharmacist working long hours without a support pharmacist in a multinational store was recently tried for manslaughter because she made a dispensing error. (The error hadn't actually caused the patient's death apparently, but the judge ruled that it had the potential to have caused her death). Serious stuff.

Still on responsibility, it's very easy and commonplace for random people to walk into a pharmacy and threaten the staff - it's not easy to explain to your average middle-class codeine addict why you won't sell them the OTC linctus preparation. And that's just the drug found in solpadeine, never mind the stuff we keep in the safes. Few scientists risk potential threats from heroin addicts (though the ones involved in animal testing have their trials!)

The attitude from some people in my class this year was 'why the hell should I stand on my feet from morning to night, no lunch break, with abuse from patients and managers, run off my feet with scripts and stressed from the responsibility and now way less pay'. Some pharmacies can be dreamlike quiet havens for pharmacists - others are incredibly stressful. There's a high salary but remember it's rarely a 9-5 job. I worked in a late-night pharmacy. People would come in with their prescriptions at 10pm and give out murder because we had intended to close at such an 'early' hour (these weren't prescriptions from late-night doctor services - 10pm seemed to just be the convenient time for the patients to pick up the scripts). We never ended up closing at 10 - it was usually 10.15 ish - you can't turn people with prescriptions away. Some of my graduate friends will be working in midnight pharmacies this year on a salary of 20,000.

It's a while since I looked up figures so correct me if I'm wrong but a salary for an experienced teacher is around the 50,000 mark? I know teachers have had levies etc. but if you could find a community pharmacist who doesn't have to work Saturdays, Sundays or late nights, has more than 20 days holiday, gets a lunchbreak and would be offered at least 50,000 or over for this I'd be astonished.

Disclaimer: This post is not an incitement for answers along the line of 'I'm a teacher and I have been hit by x,y,z cuts - how dare you suggest etc.' - I just picked an example. I could have picked an accountant or an engineer or other professions.

Also, I understand that I will be attacked for this post, but I'm just trying to give a balanced opinion since most of the public seems to think our goal in life is to mysteriously pave our driveways with gold. Pharmacists shouldn't be ridiculously high paid, but they do deserve to earn a decent living for what they do, taking into account the responsibility they hold.

astrofool

I'm sorry, but you could drop the word "Bus driver" instead of "Pharmacist" into the above, and the responsibility and dealing with the underclasses would still hold true.

The costs of running a pharmacy were living in a bubble, the cost of running a pharmacy expanded to fill that bubble, and now the bubble has burst, so the pharmacy is going to have to adapt to the new reality. This is a painful process, but needed to happen, just as it is happening to the property market (Estate agents, conveyancing lawyers and the builders are all being forced to adapt to the new reality).

Teachers are another area that needs to be tackled, but, their bubble has mostly occurred by making the profession a closed shop. Try being a teacher who doesn't have tenure, and you'll quickly see that it's not a great life (our sub Maths teacher used to sell trinkets on O'Connell bridge between substituting).

Hussard

The pharmacists were getting too much money but before considering this as a victory consider the ineptitude with which the HSE prepared for a situation they knew was coming down the line but which they were totally out of their depth in dealing with. Stories of supplies being driven across counties in taxis would suggest that there is more money wasted in the HSE in one day, with no benefit to the public, than would be overspent on non generic drugs in a month.

Riskymove

astrofool wrote: »

I'm sorry, but you could drop the word "Bus driver" instead of "Pharmacist" into the above, and the responsibility and dealing with the underclasses would still hold true.

.

and if you substituted "taxi driver" for "pharmacist" you'd have the same basic issues following de-regulation

powerful vested interests = barriers to entry = bad news for consumer

and that has been the format in this country in many sectors due to the usual political carry-on

Tim Robbins

Prime Mover wrote: »

If she had been on top of her brief she would have already negotiated lower factory prices, restructured wholesaler and pharmacist margins and redesigned the sector to match the model in other Euro countries where the pharmacists play more of a recognised primary care role. This would have resulted in much bigger savings and an improved health system. However, what do we have now? Pissed off patients, pissed off pharmacists, the same high factory prices and the same confusing margin model just with a big chunk out of it.

These are all valid but separate issues. You are using the same spin tactic from the IPU conflating separate issues and then calling Harney nasty adjectives.

Tim Robbins

Springmaus wrote: »

Since you asked, I didn't understand this either until I started talking to health professionals. One of the main reasons in defence of doctors' salaries is the responsibility they hold. If they make a mistake, they'll be sued - it was pointed out to us in college by a lawyer that Ireland is one of the most litigious countries in the world with respect to health professionals and that we'd want to be bloody careful. As a scientist you hold a lot of responsbility (and I'd be the first to say scientists in this country get a terrible deal) but it's not as much as the responsibility for the life/death of a patient that a pharmacist would have.

If a fireman makes a mistake it will also result in life or death. Dito an Ambulance Driver. Dito a nurse. Every week I referee rugby. Every year or two there is a serious accident which results in someone having extremly serious injury. You can also end up in court over this. You can live the rest of your life with the haunting memory of a scrum collapsing, wondering was there something you did wrong or having other people say there was or knowing there was.

We ref the games for guess what - free.

I worked in a late-night pharmacy.

Perhaps this explains your bias.

Pharmacists shouldn't be ridiculously high paid, but they do deserve to earn a decent living for what they do, taking into account the responsibility they hold.

I see no reason why they should be anymore than a nurse. The only reason why they were getting so much was because they were a closed shop.