Supermarket ‘hypocrisy’
December 19, 2013
The Guild has stepped up the
war on supermarkets creeping into
pharmacy space as they attempt
to provide customers with basic
health checks and health advice
under a new ‘health & wellness’
banner, while still promoting
cigarettes and alcohol.
Drawing the contrast between
the focus of pharmacists and
supermarkets, Pharmacy Guild
of Australia ceo David Quilty
highlighted the two dramatically
different business models.
“One of the primary reasons why
Australia’s medicine system has
such high levels of integrity and
public trust is that the community
pharmacies that responsibly
dispense these medicines must be
owned by pharmacists … and only
pharmacists.
“Pharmacists are, first and
foremost, health care providers,”
he emphasised.
“One of the hallmarks of
Australia’s community pharmacies
is their long-standing reputation for
putting patients before profits,” he
added.
“True health professionals don’t
compromise when it comes to
health outcomes.
“They don’t pursue profits at the
expense or to the detriment of
good health outcomes.
“They certainly don’t retail
products like tobacco and alcohol
with such known damaging health
impacts.
“The same cannot be said of
Australia’s big supermarkets,” he
remarked.
Grocery businesses have a
massive reliance on cigarette sales
to remain viable as well as being
the largest sellers of alcohol with in
excess of 60 per cent of the market.
Aztec Australia’s 2012 point-ofsale
grocery data showed that
tobacco is by far the largest product
category sold by supermarkets at
nearly seven billion a year - almost
three times the value of the next
largest category.
Woolworths ‘health & wellness’
banner and their “health checks”
are “the height of hypocrisy,” said
Quilty.
“A wolf is still a wolf, regardless of
such crude attempts to dress it up
in sheep’s clothing.”
Woolworths ha
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