Cape Town - Private pharmacies are appealing to government to permit state medication to be dispensed at all pharmacies.

Drew Horner, chief executive of the pharmacy association, United South African Pharmacies (Usap), believes the long queues at state hospitals and clinics could be a thing of the past if the Department of Health enters into a co-operation agreement with the private sector in terms of which private pharmacies can also dispense government medication.

The problem of supplying chronic and acute medicines can be alleviated - both now and when a national health insurance system (NHI) is launched.

The best solution would be for patients using government's health facilities to fetch their medication from their nearest pharmacy, rather than having to travel kilometres to the nearest hospital or clinic where they wait in long queues, he says.

Horner reckons consumers would certainly prefer to visit the closest pharmacy. According to him, 88% of the people participating in a survey indicated that they would not travel more than 5 km to a pharmacy other than their closest one, even if the medication was cheaper elsewhere.

Usap is now appealing to the department to negotiate with the private pharmacy sector so that a system for delivering state patients' chronic medicines to private pharmacies can be set up.

Observers believe the plan can work against the background of the 1 500 private pharmacies across the country, if efficient administration processes are used.

This could also support the private pharmacy industry in an NHI environment. These pharmacies are currently struggling to survive in the shadow of retail pharmacies such as Dischem and Clicks, which are swallowing an increasing slice of the pie.

There are already more than 200 Clicks pharmacies and the group wants to open a pharmacy in every store because this attracts consumer traffic. Other retailers, like Shoprite, are also expanding their pharmacy services.

- Sake24.com

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