Dear colleagues,
I do not think that examples of countries (and there are many) where
there is no requirement to be a pharmacist to own a pharmacy is a
critical issue in the discussion in South Africa. It is not good,
particularly in the case of the issue under discussion, to take
examples without considering the general context and its differences
with the context to which such example is going to be theoretically
applied. Many countries, some smaller others much bigger than South
Africa, have retail pharmacy chains owned by businessmen or groups or
whatever. This does not necessarily have direct implications for
better or worse drug quality, rationality of drug use, or service to
the customers.
I think that two facts are difficult to ignore:
a) retail pharmacists are getting a predefined percentage on the
retail price of any drug they sell regardless of the amount of
professionalism and advice to the patient they put in the selling
operation, and
b) retail pharmacists do make a lot of money in most countries on
earth, and the amount of money they make depends much on the corner
where they have their shop and very little on their professional
skills.
This makes them look like very-much-business-oriented professionals.
It is easy to justify that at least a pharmacist should be present in
a pharmacy all time when this is open. But I think that it is
difficult to explain why ownership of a pharmacy should be exclusivity
of pharmacists.
Does anybody think that restaurants should belong to cooks, computer
shops to engineers, and Merck to a pharmacist ???
Valerio Reggi
---Note from the moderator:
South Africa's National Drug Policy not only wants to open up
ownership (to ensure that pharmaceutical services are also opened in
townships where individual pharmacists would not easily go), but also
aims to take the financial incentive away for retail pharmacists and
dispensing doctors to sell extra expensive medicines by introducing a
professional fee system. The margin system has been abolished (except
for a small restocking margin of 3%).
Wilbert Bannenberg
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