The Malta Chamber of Pharmacists accused the Union Haddiema Maghqudin of not having understood the full benefits of a pharmacy-of-your-choice scheme. The new decentralised service would bring more than that to patients. Decentralisation was a reality that the UHM must face, it said.

The chamber said that, contrary to what the UHM perceived, the chamber represented pharmacists in all spheres of pharmaceutical practice, whether pharmacist pharmacy-owners, managing pharmacists or locum community pharmacists, in addition to, for example, pharmacists in academia, industry, medical representation and veterinary pharmacy. These pharmacists were in private practice and the majority were employed. This was wider than the UHM’s concept of “employed” pharmacists, which appeared to be limited to that of “pharmacists employed by the government”.

For the last 20 years, the chamber said, it had worked towards the introduction of pharmaceutical care services worthy of Maltese citizens. Problems of queues would become a thing of the past to the benefit of patients. The problem of out-of-stock items was one of the contingencies that would be addressed.