Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi signed an agreement with the Malta Chamber of Pharmacists and the GRTU yesterday to kickstart one of the government’s long-term aims in healthcare: the Pharmacy of Your Choice system.

When fully implemented, this system will have patients obtaining their medicines from town and village pharmacies they would have chosen as against the present system of getting their medicines from the hospital.

Ideally, the new system should cut down on endless visits to hospital and health centres, curb abuse and waste and enable pharmacists to better help their patients in a professional way.

The computerisation this system presupposes will also cut down on the requirement that every medicine requires a doctor’s prescription, which should free doctors from the precious time they spend writing useless prescriptions.

The new system will be implemented first in Mosta in the coming weeks. Patients who usually get their medicine from the Mosta Health Centre will be informed about the new system and how they must register with a private pharmacy of their choice. Following evaluation, the new system will then be extended to the rest of Malta.

Both GRTU and the Chamber of Pharmacists expressed their approval of the new system and said this will be a considerable step forward in healthcare.

The new system will acknowledge that pharmacists are an integral part of primary healthcare.

However, it will only be after more discussions with the social partners that an agreement will be drawn up on how the government will reimburse the pharmacists for the medicines given to patients.