THE CONTINGENCY arrangements put in place by the Health Service Executive to deal with the dispute by pharmacists over fees are expected to receive a significant test today as greater number of patients seek dispensing services following the bank holiday weekend.
The Irish Pharmacy Union, which represents community pharmacists, last night forecast that there would be “chaos” today.
Union president Liz Hoctor said the HSE had clearly not been prepared for the relatively light volume of patients it had to deal with on Saturday and she feared “for what might happen when the normal post bank holiday surge occurs today”.
The pharmacy union also said it had seen evidence of “clear mistakes and flaws” with the medicines dispensed to patients at some of the temporary dispensing centres established by the HSE.
Hundreds of pharmacists have withdrawn from operating the State drug schemes, including the medical card and long-term illness schemes in protest at Government moves to cut fees by €133 million over a full year.
Up to a dozen temporary dispensing centres have been established by the HSE to help fill the shortfall in supply caused by the pharmacists’ action.
The executive said its temporary centres were not designed to replicate the services provided by community pharmacists but to fill gaps in services in areas worst hit by the dispute.
It maintained its contingency plans worked reasonably well on Saturday.
However, the Irish Pharmacy Union said the likelihood of inexperienced and overworked staff in these dispensaries making mistakes would increase today as demand for prescriptions was expected to rise significantly after the bank holiday weekend.
Some pharmacies which had not resigned from the State schemes said on Saturday they could only dispense to their existing customers, although the HSE said this was in breach of their contracts.
The HSE said there would be a Garda presence at some of the temporary dispensing centres today following alleged incidents of intimidation, including threats of violence against locum pharmacists working in these facilities.
A HSE spokeswoman said last night that incidents of intimidation had taken place against staff in centres in Roscommon, Mayo and Donegal. She said in more than one location this involved “threatening language suggesting that the person’s safety might be compromised”.
A spokesman for the pharmacy union said it would condemn any intimidation by its members but it had seen no evidence of this.
In a statement released by the union last night one pharmacist, John Staunton from Louisburg, Co Mayo, said that having checked with the son of one of his patients in relation to medicines dispensed by one of the HSE centres, he had discovered a number of errors.
“The prescription was for seven items in total but when the son brought the medicines back to me to double check what he’d been given, I found that the HSE had no stock for two of the items . . . made errors in respect of four of them and only dispensed one of the items correctly.”
Mr Staunton said he had phoned the HSE pharmacy on Saturday at 6.30pm and was told the pharmacist was in a meeting.