Drug plan backlash

Janet McCutchon said it’s too early to tell what the impact of the government’s planned Ontario Drug Benefit changes will have on pharmacies, but the Woit’s Pharmacy co-owner is worried what it could mean for this region.

She’s specifically concerned about 10 of her employees who rely on their jobs as a soul source of income since their spouses have been laid off from the forestry industry.

Earlier this week, the Ontario government announced they plan to eliminate professional allowances – paying shopkeepers for shelf space – from generic medication companies. The plan would also cut the cost of generic medications by as much as half.

The funding cuts total more than $750 million, averaging about $300,000 per store, said McCutchon, adding it will affect pharmacies across the board from big chains to locally-owned independent stores.

"It’s a tremendous economic pressure to all pharmacies," she said, noting the cut in funding would be felt through cutbacks to patient services like consultations and delivery services, which were previously free-of-charge.

Janzen’s Pharmacy owner Brenda Adams said they also rely on the funding to be able to provide similar services to their clients.

Where bigger chains often sell cosmetics and other items like pop and chips, most independents like Janzen’s and Woit’s specialize only in prescription medications.

"In order to continue to provide the services we do, we’ll either have to charge for services that weren’t otherwise charged for or we’re going to have to eliminate services," said Adams.

Even though generic medications are a small percentage of Janzen’s business, Adams said they use the money from the allowances to fund other services for all their patients, not just the ones consuming generic medication.

"We provide nurse practitioner services for clients, nutritional health consultants, a diabetic educator, free deliver, blister packing and all sorts of things," Adams said. "We put money back into the community every day … to support our community partners. It’s not going to be an option for pharmacies to put that money back into those areas anymore and that’s unfortunate."

"We’ve always hired more staff to keep up with our growing business and that may not be a luxury in the future," she added. "We’re going to have to continue to grow our business without expanding our staff and of course service will suffer. That will mean longer waits in pharmacies and the turnaround times won’t be as quick."

Shoppers Drug Mart president and CEO Jurgen Schreiber told the Canadian Press his company is already reworking its business model to cut store hours and new store openings, which will result in job losses.

Shoppers employs 25,000 people in their 600 Ontario stores and Schreiber said their free delivery service and late-night hours will be cut, but he couldn’t say at this time how many jobs would be cut.