The Irish Pharmaceutical Union yesterday became the latest organisation representing health care professionals to express reservations about a private businessman's plans to set up a chain of primary healthcare centres across the State.
The president of the IPU, Dr Karl Hilton, said the plan raised serious ethical issues.
The plan would see multi-millionaire Mr Fergus Hoban, the driving force behind the Unicare pharmacy chain before it was sold to Gehe, set up centres where patients could access GPs, pharmacies and other healthcare professionals under one roof.
Dr Hilton said the IPU had serious concerns about placing pharmacies in primary healthcare centres on two grounds.
"Firstly, and most importantly, you have ethical issues. It's critical that doctors and pharmacists are seen to be completely independent of each other. The Government's own Pharmacy Review Group recommended that there should be no business relationship between doctors and pharmacists. The Minister should act to implement this recommendation."
"Secondly, locating pharmacies in these centres will allow a small number of players to corner the market. This will seriously undermine the viability of traditional, community-based pharmacies leading to less choice for patients and clients," he added.
His comments came a day after the president of the Irish Medical Organisation, Dr James Reilly, expressed concern about Mr Hoban's €500 million plan. Dr Reilly said where general practice had been "corporatised", it had led to a deterioration in services for patients. There was also a danger that doctors working in such a set up would lose their clinical independence, he claimed.