Tambassis on CoA report
May 8, 2014
THE Pharmacy Guild of Australia
national president George
Tambassis has weighed in on the
Commission of Audit’s report,
writing an opinion piece in which
he says the deregulation of
ownership and location rules, to
allow pharmacies in supermarkets,
would see clusters of pharmacies
in some areas and a reduction in
areas where communities needed
them.
Deregulation assumed that
current regulation was to make
pharmacists a “protected species”
and that supermarkets were
“champions of open competition
and cheaper prices”, and had an
interest in health care, which was
wrong “on all counts”, Tambassis
said.
Ownership rules ensured
pharmacies complied with
professional and ethical
requirements rather than the
requirements of corporations,
which was good regulation with
public benefit, he said.
“The rules are intended to ensure
that a viable network of pharmacies
can dispense PBS medicines in
a timely and equitable way to
Australian health care consumers
wherever they live.”
Allowing supermarkets to have
pharmacy would not increase
competition, and supermarkets
would not provide the services
pharmacies did, such as medication
delivery, he said.
“Giving supermarkets the right
to enter the market will ultimately
reduce the number of players in
the market and therefore reduce
competition.
“And prices won’t come down in
the short term because most PBS
prices are fixed by Government
– and not in the long term either,
because more market power for
Coles and Woolworths ultimately
means less competition and higher
prices.”
To read the full piece, CLICK HERE.
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