THE HEALTH Service Executive (HSE) has made a complaint to the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland (PSI), regulator for the pharmacy profession, about what it maintained were “serious patient care and professional/ethical” issues that took place on Saturday, the first day of the current fees dispute by pharmacists.
In a letter to registrar of the PSI Ambrose McLoughlin last night, the HSE maintained that, in some of the temporary dispensing sites that it had established around the country to provide services for patients, its staff had been subject to intimidation by community pharmacy contractors.
It also contended that a number of pharmacies that had not validly withdrawn their contracts for operating the State drugs schemes – such as the medical card and long-term illness schemes – had closed their doors for all or part of the day without prior notice.
It alleged that a number of pharmacists who had not terminated their contracts had refused to dispense drugs and medicines to patients whom they perceived as not being their own customers.
“Apart from the obvious contractual issues that arise for the HSE from the foregoing, there are, more importantly, serious patient care and professional/ethical considerations at issue which I would like to bring to your attention in the context of your regulatory role under the Pharmacy Act 2007,” the HSE’s assistant national director, Pat O’Dowd, said in the letter to the PSI.
The HSE’s national director for primary, continuing and community care, Laverne McGuinness, said in a statement yesterday that the action of some pharmacies in recent days warranted investigation, “as it represents a serious lapse in professional standards”.
“Pharmacists cannot walk away from their responsibilities when they choose to and inflict hardship on the communities they serve to pursue their own financial ends,” said Ms McGuinness.
A spokesman for the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) said that the HSE complaint was “a distraction” to move attention away from the clear failure of its contingency planning for dealing with the effects of the dispute on Saturday.
“Pharmacists have gone out of their way to moderate the impact of the dispute on patients – and to suggest otherwise is clearly ridiculous,” he said.
Hundreds of pharmacies around the country have withdrawn from operating the State drugs schemes since Saturday, in protest at Government moves to reduce the levels of fees paid out by about €133 million over a full year.
There are conflicting figures as to the number of pharmacies actually taking part in the dispute.
The HSE said that there were in excess of 1,100 pharmacies continuing to provide services under the State drug schemes.
However, the president of the IPU, Liz Hoctor, said that the union understood that as many as 800 pharmacists had either closed altogether or were not dispensing under the State drug schemes.
There were about 1,600 pharmacies with contracts to operate the State schemes.
She said that the credibility of the HSE’s claims about the number of pharmacies that were continuing to operate the schemes had been undermined again at the weekend.
It emerged that one pharmacist in Dublin, Richard Collis in Phibsboro – who said on the RTÉ news on Saturday that he had left the schemes – had been included in the latest list produced by the health authority on the number of outlets operating normally.
The IPU has warned of potential “widespread medicine shortages and delays” tomorrow as demand for dispensing services in pharmacies increases following the bank holiday weekend.
It said that there had been stories of general chaos around the country on Saturday when the dispute first began.
However, the HSE said its contingency plans had worked reasonably well.
Both sides in the dispute said that there were no attempts under way to put in place a mediator to try to negotiate a settlement.
