Sundre pharmacies have not received any response from the Alberta government regarding a provincewide petition urging stability for drug prices and pharmacies in Alberta.
The petition was presented at the legislature in Edmonton on May 13 by Danielle Smith, Wildrose official Opposition leader, and Jody Shkrobot, pharmacist in Edmonton and former head of the Canadian Pharmacists Association.
According to Chris Aingworth, pharmacy manager at Sundre's Pharmachoice, the petition has more than 33,000 signatures on it. More than 1,000 of those signatures were gathered from Sundre.
“Over 33,000 signatures submitted and we haven't heard a word, so they're obviously not interested in what the public is saying,” said Aingworth.
“They obviously don't care about what's happening to the front line. It makes me feel like they have their own agenda and they couldn't be bothered with what anyone else has to say – even the voters,” he said.
As part of its 2013 budget, the provincial government announced that effective May 1, the price for existing generic drugs listed on the Alberta provincial formulary will be reduced to 18 per cent of the brand name cost.
The reduction from the current pricing of 35 per cent of brand name drugs is expected to further save Albertans money when they fill their prescriptions, according to government officials.
Pharmacists say the reduction in price will affect their bottom line and could result in reduced services and drug shortages.
Along with Pharmachoice, Sundre's Pharmasave closed for two hours on April 11, as part of a provincewide rally against the funding cuts.
Aingworth's concern with the possibility of drug shortages is starting to become a reality, he said.
“We have had some issues come through with certain molecules. There's one antidepressant that we were just informed of that's only going to be available through one manufacturer and one manufacturer only,” he said, adding that the manufacturer has a record of failing to provide requirements.
“So there will only be one generic brand available and if that one goes short we are going to have to go to the brand name.”
Other manufacturers are concerned because their products have been removed from the formulary completely, he said.
“How it works is usually they'll put three or four manufacturers on the formulary, and then there will be one that's the lowest cost and that's the one they'll pay for,” he explained.
“But if for some reason there's a shortage of that product then we can move to another brand, which makes a lot of sense, but what they've done is they've thrown everything out except for that one brand.”
This will be effective Aug. 2, he said, adding that the brand name is significantly more expensive.
“I don't know what kind of game they're playing. It doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense, but none of this really has,” he said.
“We're hanging in there. We're all just trying to keep going without running out of stuff that we need,” he said.
“We're constantly being told that we have to change molecules, which is quite hard to keep our inventory, because you'll get 200 tablets of something and then next week they'll tell you it's not covered. So then you've got to change to a different brand.”
However, he believes that larger pharmacies might be having a harder time with the changes.
His main goal remains to have government officials sit down with pharmacists to discuss other avenues of saving the government and taxpayers money. He claims that pharmacists have several ideas on how to save “huge amounts of money”.
“The 90 million dollars that they proclaim they're going to save from this reduction in generic prices is a drop in the bucket, in comparison to what we can actually save,” he said.
“All it would take would be for the government to try and push for more generic utilization and if they were to increase generic utilization by 10 percent it would save another 90 million dollars,” he explained.
“They're focusing on the wrong goal as far as I'm concerned, but they seem to think they know this and they're not prepared to talk to the stakeholders at all.”
The provincewide petition reads: “We, the undersigned residents of Alberta, petition the legislative assembly to encourage the government of Alberta to implement policy that ensures access to and quality of the services currently provided by community pharmacies and pharmacists in Alberta is maintained.”
To accomplish a sit-down discussion with government officials, pharmacists across the province have been continuing to send letters to members of the legislative assembly.
Due to the floods across southern Alberta, government officials have been focused on that, which is a priority, said Aingworth.
“I think when the legislature gets back we'll probably start trying to rally again.”
