Letters | Sunday, 21 December 2008

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Layoffs in the pharmacy business

The Kamra ta’ l-Ispizjara ta’ Malta (Malta Chamber of Pharmacists) is gravely concerned at the possibility of lay-off of pharmacists practicing in different positions with wholesalers and supports wholesalers’ representatives in their quest to attain longstanding pending payments for medicinal products supplied to Government.
Reference is here being made to the article carried in Saturday’s issue of The Malta Independent (13th December 2008). In this regard, the Kamra ta’ l-Ispizjara ta’ Malta (Malta Chamber of Pharmacists) would like to clarify that the Government is not in principle the client of pharmacists in the general sense of the term, but of wholesalers. Pharmacists might be owners/managing directors of these businesses, though this is not the case for all of them. It is therefore the businesses, not the pharmacists, as stated in the header to the article, who are threatening lay-offs, since government is the client of the businesses, not of the pharmacists directly.
The Kamra ta’ l-Ispizjara ta’ Malta (Malta Chamber of Pharmacists) is of course also gravely concerned that wholesalers are in this situation of lack of cash flow as this can have serious socioeconomic repercussions which must be pre-empted.
Since pharmacists are both directly or indirectly hit by this untenable situation, the Kamra ta’ l-Ispizjara ta’ Malta (Malta Chamber of Pharmacists) which is the national pharmaceutical association with trade union responsibilities and privileges will do its utmost, as it has always done, to defend the interests of its pharmacist’s members wherever they practice their profession and the patients they serve.
It is a moot point that sustainable healthcare is based on many factors of which medicines are a significant one but the patient is at the centre and must continue to have equitable access to essential medicines.
The Chamber calls on the parties concerned to re-engineer an interim and long-term strategy that sets priorities and is sustainable in the present economic environment and social realities.

Mary Ann Sant Fournier
President, Chamber of Pharmacists

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