Pharmacy Daily | Guild blasts opponents

PHARMACY Guild executive director David Quilty has launched a broadside at a rising tide of opposition to pharmacist ownership of community pharmacy, classifying naysayers as either "ideologues", "commercial opportunists" or "perennially confused".

Writing in the Guild's fortnightly Forefront newsletter yesterday, Quilty said the ideologues "worship at the economic altar of the free market and unfettered ownership of all businesses," deliberately misunderstanding the unique pharmacy market where objectives are driven by equity and quality rather than economic efficiency.

The commercial opportunists see the opening up of pharmacy ownership as an opportunity for them to make more money and wield increased market power.

And the perennially confused on one hand criticise the profit-driven retail role of community pharmacy but at the same time think the sector should be opened up to supermarkets, he said.

Quilty cited the "fervent belief that pharmacies must be owned by pharmacists" as the foundation stone of the Guild's espousal of the benefits of the Australian community pharmacy model, which he claimed ensures a "patient first" approach that underpins high levels of public trust in the profession.

"Around the country governments of all political persuasions recognise the vital role played by community pharmacies...this cross-party political support for pharmacist-only pharmacy ownership... is because decision-makers rightly recognise that Australia's community pharmacy system works extremely well and the reason it does is because professionally trained pharmacists who are obligated to put their patients' first are directly invested in the system," Quilty added.

He slammed a situation where "highly paid corporate lawyers and financial advisers are able to devise ever more complex arrangements in order to get around the clear and unambiguous intent of the pharmacy ownership laws.

"If there are loopholes being exploited, they need to be addressed," Quilty concluded.

The current Qld inquiry into pharmacy ownership has seen several key submissions by major players including Chemist Warehouse (PD 24 Jul) and Ramsay Health Care (PD 06 Aug) urging a change to ownership rules.