Pharmacists warn of discontent within the pharmacy | EUROtoday

Loss of attractiveness of the occupation, lack of personnel, inflation… The way forward for the pharmacy community worries pharmacists. Gathered as an inter-union group, the occupation launched a name for a nationwide day of motion, on Tuesday, November 21, with the intention to alert the general public and the federal government to the difficulties encountered by the sector.

This mobilization, which brings collectively college students – the 24 schools of pharmacy within the area and their deans responded to the decision – and group pharmacists, should be the chance for a “convergence of struggles” between aspiring professionals and their elders.

Students will march within the streets in round ten cities to demand the implementation of the reform of the third cycle of pharmacy. Promised by the federal government seven years in the past, the latter, which gives for a rise in internship compensation, ought to make it doable to revitalize the attractiveness of an more and more abandoned sector. “Over the last two years, 1,500 places have remained empty on university benches. These are all health professionals who will be missed when they leave while our missions at the pharmacy are more and more numerous”deplores Pierre-Olivier Variot, president of the Union of Community Pharmacists’ Unions.

Economic difficulties

An extra flashing crimson mild, at a time when the monetary scenario of the pharmacy community, one other main subject on this mobilization, is wavering. Pharmacists are certainly alarmed by a deterioration within the financial circumstances of the 20,500 pharmacies within the area, more and more strangled by the rise in prices, notably salaries, underneath the impact of inflation.

With 75% of their turnover coming from the sale of medicines coated by Social Security, and whose costs are regulated by the State, the occupation has little room for maneuver to compensate for the rise in drug prices. construction, estimated by the unions at greater than 15% in 2022. At the identical time, the distinctive revenue linked to the finishing up of Covid screening checks has dried up with the ebb of the pandemic. “We are caught in a crisis and can no longer make ends meet. It is urgent to overhaul the pharmacy economy”notes Philippe Besset, president of the Federation of Pharmaceutical Unions of France.

Like his colleagues, he has been watching because the starting of autumn for the arrival of the framework letter from the Ministry of Health, which ought to mark the beginning of typical negotiations between Health Insurance and the occupation. Promised earlier than the tip of the 12 months, these discussions are supposed to determine the working circumstances and remuneration of the pharmacy community for the following 5 years. But the missive is lengthy overdue. “The State does not seem to be in a hurry to start them even though they are vital for us. More and more pharmacies have negative cash flow and are weakened. More than 30% had to request additional payment terms from their suppliers”worries Laurent Filoche, president of the Union of group pharmacist teams.

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