People living in the northern part of the island who are eligible to free medicines will be able to start collecting their medicinal products from one of the 24 pharmacies of their choice in their respective hometown in two months time, Health Minister Louis Deguara said yesterday.

Speaking at a media conference he gave details of ongoing preparations with regard to a new system by means of which free medicines will no longer have to be collected from health centres or polyclinics, but precisely from the “Pharmacy of Your Choice”.

Staff from the Health Division are carrying out meetings with pharmacists participating in the pilot project to iron out every uncertainty regarding the new system.

The Health Division has also collected data regarding the type and amount of medicines that will be needed in different pharmacies that will be participating in the pilot project.

The division is also about to start collecting data from pharmacies in different localities, which Minister Deguara said were expected to be able to start offering the service soon after the first pilot project gets underway.

The first project covers the localities of Mosta, Bugibba, Gharghur, Mellieha, Mgarr, Naxxar, Qawra and St Paul’s Bay, although Mosta residents will still be required to collect medicines from the Mosta Health Centre for the time being.

As the system is introduced gradually in other localities, every pharmacy would be offering the service to about 60 patients every week and pharmacists will be paid Lm8 (EUR18.63) for every patient receiving the service from them.

“This means that pharmacists will now be able to dedicate more time to provide advice to patients on an individual basis, something which was difficult at health centres and polyclinics due to the heavy workload,” said the minister.

It is estimated that a total of 120,000 people are eligible for free medicines, so if every patient were to register to benefit from the system, it would cost the government a total of Lm96,000 (EUR223,619).

However, Dr Deguara insisted that the new system would be more cost-effective, particularly since the Health Division would have more control on consumption of medicines given for free to people suffering from chronic diseases, diabetes and others who need to take psychotropic drugs like tranquillisers.

Dr Deguara explained that it was mostly difficult to collect data about the last category of people, since they normally needed to change the type of tranquillisers they took on an irregular basis.

Such medicines that were provided for free amounted to about 160 different types and the minister said it was important to consider that not all pharmacies had enough space available to stock such large amounts of medicinal products; in fact there was one particular pharmacy that has chosen not to be included in the pilot project simply due to a lack of space to store such medicines.

Pharmacists will be collecting psychotropic drugs from the Health Division on a monthly basis and a top-up system will be in place for other medicines, in order to avoid occupying space uselessly.

In total, about 200 pharmacies have already registered to be included in the new system, said Dr Deguara, adding that only nine were as yet undecided. He said it appeared that these pharmacies had wrongly understood that they had to be members of the Malta Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises (GRTU) to be able to join the system.

As for government pharmacists who feared they would become redundant due to the new system, Dr Deguara explained that this was not the case, particularly since a number of ward pharmacists would be required at the new hospital.