FERMANAGH pharmacies joined those across the UK for a day of protest against NHS underfunding last week.
Despite playing a vital role in the local health service, and going above and beyond to serve their local communities, pharmacies here in Fermanagh and across the country have been experiencing severe financial difficulties, and are under huge pressure.
Across the North, pharmacies are closing at an unprecedented rate, with 14 shutting in the last 12 months. Of those pharmacies that remain open, many are cutting opening hours to make ends meet. The medicine shortage crisis means pharmacy teams sometimes spend hours trying to get a patient’s medicines.
Last Thursday, June 20, Hughes Pharmacy in both Enniskillen and Newtownbutler turned off the lights in the store, while staff wore black, to signify a return to the dark ages due to the situation community pharmacies are in.
Pharmacist Paul Hughes explained, “We are extremely underfunded and most community pharmacies that I can speak for are really struggling on a day-to-day basis to pay their bills and more importantly to resource their drugs and that is due to prices rising and in a lot of cases we are not getting paid for the drugs that we are buying and dispensing and we are dispensing them at a loss due to underfunding.”
The Newtownbutler man went on to send a plea for politicians to help the pharmacies get back on their feet.
“Community pharmacies are a very underutilised and under-resourced commodity in Northern Ireland and it could do so much more than it is doing already if we had the funding,” he said.
“I like all my colleagues would like to bring attention to this and ask all the politicians urgently to address this matter and to get back and do something about it before there are more closures in Northern Ireland.”
All branches of Gordon’s Chemists across the region were among the pharmacies who took part in the ‘One Day to #saveourpharmacies’ day of action, including here in Fermanagh.
Paul McCutcheon, who works in the Enniskillen branch said, “It is very hard for independent pharmacies to go ahead and trade, and with the closure of pharmacies it is taking away from the local communities.
“With the way things are going, the doctors are overwhelmed so the first point of contact for patients is the local pharmacies so if we are not funded to give the service that we think they should get then everybody is going to suffer.”
Chief Executive of the National Pharmacy Association (NPA), Paul Rees, commented, “Community pharmacies across the UK are in crisis and this is a national emergency. Our 6000 member pharmacies and many others are saying, ‘Enough is Enough’. Community pharmacies provide essential frontline health services, but they are being driven to the brink. That’s why we supported this day of action and have been calling on the government to take action to protect our pharmacies.”
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