PHARMACY owners are "raking in profits and literally fencing off their industry from competition", while employee pharmacists earn the lowest hourly rate of any health worker, union group, Professional Pharmacists Australia (PPA) claims.
Responding to criticism of medicines pricing raised in a series of articles published across News Corp titles earlier this week (PD 10 Aug), PPA criticised the $18 billion Seventh Community Pharmacy Agreement (7CPA) and the Federal Government's decision to remove the sunset clause on the Pharmacy Location Rules.
Long-servicing PPA President, Geoff March, said the 7CPA and the location rules "serve a very narrow set of special interests".
"The power of special interest groups in Canberra is never clearer than the case of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia and the location rules approved by the Federal Government which act like a protection racket for the richest and most powerful pharmacy owners," he said.
"What the rules do, is to ban new pharmacies from setting up within 1.5 kilometres of an existing pharmacy business.
"It stifles competition, increasing prices and makes it nearly impossible for working pharmacists to start their own business, locking them in a cycle of low paid work.
"This is one of the main reasons that almost half of all working pharmacists are considering leaving the profession or have already decided to do so based on latest research."
March said the current community pharmacy system was overly focused on the supply of medicines "rather than focusing on care".
"Employee community pharmacists know far more can be done with the over $18 billion-dollar investment by taxpayers into pharmacy but there is little realistic opportunity for these staff to ever open their own business or provide care under the current model," he said.
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