Could someone from the health authorities shed some light on how the “Pharmacy Of Your Choice” scheme is exactly going to work? It seems as though the cost of running it will exceed the current expenditure by over Lm1 million.

This, keeping in mind that apparently the government pharmacists, working in the Primary Healthcare section, are supposedly being asked to hold on to their place of work, and prepare packs of medication for every individual patient, which would be later distributed to “our beloved Pharmacy Of Our Choice scheme”.

Having said that, “of our choice”, will this really be so? Will a patient be free to choose to collect his or her medication from the respective health centre pharmacies anyway? Thus saving him or herself the hassle of going to the Health Centre for a free prescription and then following up about a week later at the Private Pharmacy. For unless there is going to be a “Doctor Of Your Choice” scheme to go with it, this is exactly what the patient will have to do, unless he or she wants to bear the burden of paying around Lm2 for a prescription from a private doctor, to be able to receive his medication in a shorter period of time.

In spite of everything mentioned above, what surprises me the most is the fact that we still haven’t heard anything from the pharmacists working in the private sector. Well of course, we have heard a lot from the pharmacy owners, some of whom are pharmacists themselves, but what about the rest? Does this mean that the employed pharmacists are accepting to work more without a raise? Seems hardly plausible; guess we’ll have to wait for their unions to answer that.

Having said all this, it is quite clear that the patients want answers, as do the tax payers, well at least those concerned. I guess we’re all hoping that this isn’t just a political move in order to please voters prior to the impending election. We do not want to pay more money out of our taxes for nothing.

Maltese patients, tax payers and all citizens want a fair deal and value for money. The POYC scheme must not be implemented at the expense of government employed pharmacists and pharmacy technicians.

Jonathan Debono

Ta’ Xbiex