With talk of the provincial budget starting to slow down, one particular cut has seemingly fallen under the radar, as local pharmacists explain just how much they've been hit by provincial cost cutting.
Under the new budget, the province is set to save upwards of $90 million after various cuts were made to funding initiatives and grants, which hundreds of pharmacies in Alberta relied on.
Paul Tellier, owner of Tellier's Value Drug Mart, and PJ Davey, owner of Davey Drug Mart Pharmasave, said the cuts came as a complete surprise to them and they're going to have to implement a number of changes to ensure they keep their costs at a minimum.
“I think the word that has been used to describe this budget is Draconian,” Davey said. “I think the hardest part for the pharmacies is that we didn't see the cuts coming.”
The most important change the province has brought forth is the decision to reduce the cost of generic drugs from 35 to 18 percent of brand-name products – but instead of covering the loss of earnings itself, the government is expecting pharmacies to foot the bill.
Davey said that he has roughly $200,000 worth of drugs he's already paid for in his store that, come May 1, will only be worth roughly half that amount – pointing out the average pharmacy will likely lose around $360,000 per year, which equates to half of his business' net profit. Both men have made it clear that they're unhappy the government has refused to provide pharmacies with what they called a ‘washout period', whereby they would still be able to sell the drugs they've already paid for at their regular price.
And while both men are upset with the huge losses they are going to take in the coming year, they say the thing that hurts the most is that they might not be able to provide the same quality of service for the public as they had been providing in the past.
Tellier though said that the government has made it clear that they expect pharmacies throughout the province to keep those services as they are, even though they're taking away almost a third of their business. Both men say that they will inevitably have to look for ways to save money.
“There are several services that in the past, we've provided for free,” Tellier said. “We've always printed tax receipts free of charge, or done over the counter consultations for free, that will likely no longer be an option.”
Both men said that unfortunately they may be forced to look at either reducing the pay, or hours of pharmacists they employ, something Davey said is a shame as the pharmacists have done nothing wrong.
“The reality of this situation is that we're no longer going to be able to pay pharmacists what they're worth,” Davey said. “Maybe instead of the $60 an hour they're receiving now, we'll have to start paying $20 or $30 an hour. Either that or we'll have to cut hours.”
Tellier said that he feels ‘blind sided' by the move after he spoke with Health Minister Fred Horne via a conference call last year, where Horner personally guaranteed there would be no cuts to pharmacy this time around.
“I don't think the pharmacy sector has received a raise in anything for a number of years,” Tellier said. “We've had cut after cut after cut, and some of us were concerned after last year.”
He went on to add that he believes the government has done a very good job of dressing this budget up and making it sound positive, but that these cuts really signal the start of a slow erosion of services that pharmacies are able to offer.
In spite of the loss of money each will be taking, both Davey and Tellier say they understand the government is in a difficult situation regarding their current deficit, but they claim it's wrong for the government to cut the profitability of an entire profession.
Davey said that although the government is believed to be in discussions with RxA, a voluntary association charged with looking out for the best interests of pharmacists, he doesn't expect anything to come out of that.
“The province has done a very good job of brick-walling us up to this point,” Davey said. “There are a number of things they could do to ease the situation, primarily to negotiate sustainability of pharmacies, because as things stand, a number of smaller pharmacies are likely to go out of business.”
