Pharmacy Daily | Rural pharmacies voice COVID fears

PHARMACISTS operating in rural and remote areas are warning that patients' access to medicines could be cut off if they are exposed to COVID-19.

Rural Pharmacy Network of Australia (RPNA) Coordinator, Katie Stott, who manages the only pharmacy in Dover, Tasmania, with Pharmacy Guild of Australia Tasmania Branch Committee Member, Fred Hellqvist, told The Guardian that they were "terrified" of catching the virus and having to temporarily close the store.

"If we had to close for seven days or more I'm really scared," she said.

"We just don't have a lot of backup. A lot of these bigger pharmacies [are] operating A and B teams.

"They can bring a fresh team in that haven't had contact with the other team if someone gets sick.

"We've just been praying it won't happen but with Omicron it just seems like an inevitability that rural pharmacies are going to get hit.

"I can just anticipate that it will be absolutely chaotic if we have to close for more than a day.

"We'll probably end up in a situation where people are calling triple-0 unnecessarily or going up to the doctor's surgery."

Stott said that since the start of the pandemic the RPNA has been warning the Federal Government that there needs to be a contingency plan to ensure ongoing access to medicines in the event that pharmacies have to close due to COVID-19.

However the organisation said it has yet to receive any pledge of support from Federal or State governments.

Stott said there were two main challenges facing rural pharmacy owners in the event that they contract COVID-19, with accessing locum pharmacists already proving to be "a nightmare".

"A, it's getting a locum in the first place to keep the doors open, and B, it's the cost of that locum ... the hourly rate that they'll be expecting to come into a pharmacy last minute, into potentially where there's an outbreak of Covid, they can demand a pretty hefty rate and that's not easy for a small pharmacy like ours to deal with," she said.