URGENT action is needed to support the continued viability of rural pharmacies, the Rural Pharmacy Network Australia (RPNA) believes.
A spokesperson for the organisation told Pharmacy Daily that small rural and remote stores have been "smashed by the triple-whammy of extreme workforce shortages, higher relative workloads and escalating wages".
"We're sick of all the empty talk that happens around the pharmacy workforce, especially ludicrous claims by some inner city pharmacy owners that rural and outer- metro areas are no worse-off than average," the spokesperson said.
"We did a national and state-by-state breakdown of the pharmacist to population ratios and found that while [pharmacies in] Modified Monash Model (MMM) areas one to four are mostly meeting the 2018 Royal Flying Doctors Service benchmark of 75 pharmacists per 100,000, MMM five and seven [pharmacies] nationally and MMM six in NSW, are falling drastically short.
"The claim that this is the same problem sector-wide simply doesn't hold water."
The RPNA noted that the benchmark's ratios did not take into account the healthcare burden and care requirements faced in rural pharmacies, further exacerbating the current workforce crisis, which had unfolded over the last 15 to 20 years.
"The time for tinkering at the edges of the problem has passed," the spokesperson said.
"It's hard to find a rural proprietor who believes that immigration measures can adequately address their problems and most believe that targeted financial incentives are the only way forward.
"It's simplistic to the point of childishness to think you can fix this without devoting large amounts of money to the problem.
"Our members are increasingly telling us that all options should be on the table, including things like weighting PBS dispensing fees according to the relative disadvantage of pharmacy locations.
"At the very least we need a comprehensive and properly funded Workforce Incentive Program that recognises Community Pharmacy's vital role in rural primary healthcare."
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