Pharmacy Daily | Rural pharmacy forced out of business

RURAL Western Australian town, Mount Magnet, is set to lose its sole pharmacy after being locked out of a contract to supply a local indigenous health service.

In a post on the Mount Magnet La Croix Pharmacy's Facebook page, the owners apologised to the community saying "we did our best to avoid this, but we have been experiencing serious financial difficulties, especially in the last couple of years, which made the business unviable".

Speaking on the ABC's Mornings with Glenn Barndon last week, co-owner, Michel Ibrahim, said challenges recruiting pharmacists combined with the local Federally-funded medical clinic, the Geraldton Aboriginal Medical Service (GAMS) refusing to negotiate its medication supply contract with the pharmacy forced the closure.

"In Mt Magnet the doctors' surgery is run by GAMS," he said.

"GAMS chose to source its medication from Geraldton, which is around 340km form Mt Magnet and they didn't give us a chance to provide the medication for the town.

"There was no tender.

"We tried to talk to them and since the first day we started business about six and a half years ago but we couldn't get a straight answer except that GAMS has always sourced its medication from Rangeway Pharmacy and they've been doing business with them for years and there's no need to change."

Mt Magnet Shire President, Jorgen Jensen, told the ABC the closure of the pharmacy was likely to delay access to medicines, warning patients would have to wait two to four days for medicines that had previously been available immediately from the pharmacy.

"It's going to end up being quite a large impact," he said.

"It doesn't just affect Mt Magnet.

"It affects Cue to a degree and more so Sandstone.

Jensen also questioned the lack of a tender process for the GAMS medicines supply contract.

"I just think it's a Government-funded entity and you would expect that periodically every three or five years there would be procurement contracts put out so the market continually gets tested," he said.

"I know from a local government point-of-view we obviously handle government money, we're obliged to do that on a regular basis and that's how it should be."