60-day scripts prompt Pharmacy Guild president Trent Twomey to weep

Twomey apologised for his language, saying: “I’m a North Queenslander. I don’t mean to swear, but they just don’t care. You know, this is supposed to be a government that cares. This is not how one operates.”

The 60-day dispensing policy was recommended by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee and is backed by doctor’s groups and the Consumer Health Forum, which say it will save patients a trip to the doctor each year as well as up to $180 on each medicine.

“This is a really good move which shows the government is listening to the voices of consumers,” the consumer group’s chief executive Elizabeth Deveny said. “Every dollar saved at the pharmacy is money that can be spent on groceries or rent.”

But the president of the Guild, which is one of Australia’s biggest political donors, dismissed the consumer advocacy group as one that “receive[s] millions of dollars of funding from the Commonwealth Government” and had been briefed by the government before the pharmacy sector.

Pharmacy Guild of Australia president Trent Twomey with Health Minister Mark Butler last year.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“We don’t know how this is going to work and we do have concern for our patients,” Twomey said.

He also warned of widespread medicine shortages and accused Butler of making “false claims” when the minister said that only seven medicines on the list were experiencing supply problems.

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Butler said he wanted to “caution against some of the scare campaigns being put by the pharmacy lobby group” as he rejected the guild’s claims of widespread supply problems.

He said seven in the list of 325 were experiencing shortages and they were being closely monitored by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

“I caution people against taking advice from the pharmacy lobby group about supply arrangements that are monitored very closely by our medicines authorities,” Butler said.

“This will not impact the supply and demand of these 300 medicines… We have deliberately decided to phase in these arrangements over the course of this year and next year, so pharmacists are able to change their itinerary arrangements.”

Coalition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston backed in the guild’s concerns.

“Until we see the budget papers, we cannot be confident that this is a legitimate cost-of-living measure,” she said.

Canberra pharmacy owner Samantha Kourtis, appearing alongside Twomey on Wednesday, said patients were telling her about shortages. She also said there was no doubt she would have to cut staff, reduce trading and limit the hours of her registered pharmacists.

“Small business owners, your community pharmacy where you and your loved ones live, have to make up for those cuts somewhere,” she said.

“I can’t just all of a sudden sell $3 million more stuff, because they’ve cut the net profit. So how am I going to be able to pay my loan? I’m going to have to cut costs, and that is cut staff, cut trading hours, cut services that don’t make any money.”

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