Lac La Biche area pharmacists wait for news on vaccine

LAC LA BICHE - Lac La Biche pharmacists are not sure when they will be getting the COVID-19 vaccine, as the province is taking a gradual approach to vaccine distribution.

Pharmacist Zicki Eludin, the owner of Lac La Biche’s Crescent I.D.A. Drugs, says Alberta Health started giving vaccines to a small number of pharmacies in Edmonton, Red Deer, and Calgary at the beginning of March, so now it’s just a waiting game for when they will have a chance to administer them in Lac La Biche.

“We are waiting on the province to allocate it to pharmacies. They still don’t have enough product to give it out to everyone,” said Eludin. There has also been some confusion over the number of doses pharmacies are required to give out in a single day.

According to Collin Stratichuk, the pharmacist and owner of Value Drug Mart, it isn’t clear whether pharmacies in rural Alberta will have to follow the same Alberta Health guidelines that urban pharmacies have. Pharmacies in larger centres are expected to distribute up to 30 vaccines per day. Stratichuk says that number might mean Value Drug Mart and many other pharmacies in smaller communities won’t have staffing resources to keep up.

“If they’re expecting a small rural pharmacy to do 30 per day that basically works out to one patient every 15 minutes,” said Stratichuk. “That would require one pharmacist and one pharmacy technician doing that all day long. If they’re sticking by 30 patients per day, we won’t be able to participate. So, we are hoping that is going to change.”

Pharmacist first

There are other changes that Stratichuk believes should be put in place soon, especially since there will be more pharmacies and pharmacy staff around the province expected to administer the vaccine. He hopes that when the vaccine does roll out to more pharmacies, Alberta Health might have to consider adding ‘pharmacists’ to the list of frontline workers to keep them safe while on the job.

“I would hope they would allow pharmacists to get vaccinated early,” said Stratichuk. “It would be nice to have a shot too if you’re going to be hands-on with people coming through your door.”