PHARMACISTS CLAIM 1,600 jobs in the sector have been lost and services to patients cut back considerably as a result of cuts introduced by the Government last year.
In a submission to Minister for Health Mary Harney on her review of the emergency legislation which allowed for the cutbacks, the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) has sought the reinstatement of some payments abolished last year.
It said pharmacists would collectively lose between €144 million and €166 million in a full year as a result of the cuts imposed under the financial emergency legislation.
This was considerably more than the €133 million which Ms Harney had maintained last year would be lost as a result of the cutbacks, the union said.
Analysis carried out by consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers showed that average earnings of a pharmacy would fall by more than €100,000 as a direct result of the cuts introduced by the Government. IPU president Darragh O’Loughlin maintained that even allowing for job losses and other cost-cutting in pharmacies, the cuts had reduced pharmacy net profitability by approximately 38 per cent. The IPU said the analysis had found that pharmacies had been forced to cut back on patient services. It said 55 per cent of them had had to stop providing out-of-hours services, and 39 per cent had been forced to reduce their opening hours.