A cloud with a thin silver lining in pharmacy?

I was reading some articles from Pharmacy Gateway to get an update on Bill 16 these days after the tour to keep myself updated on this issue (as any member of the pharmacy profession, including myself, should these days). May 18 was a dark day for the pharmacy profession, as Bill 16 had passed third reading then. It was also an event that I had expected ever since the issue had arisen a few months ago. The only twist to the story is that Minister Matthews have stalled on the implementation of the regulatory changes by “reviewing submissions” for a month.

I have mixed and, quite frankly, quite cynical feelings about Minister Matthews’ gesture on this issue. True, it has been settled between the pharmacy students and Minister Matthews that she would agree to delay the implementation of the bill and use the time to review more submissions. She has kept her word in that sense. However, the truth of her actions cannot be evaluated. With my cynicism in politicians, I truly doubt that she will truly consider the feasibility of those submissions, which are all great ideas.

It’s almost like an episode of Daily Planet on Discovery Channel about different possible oil-spill clean-up technologies aired a week ago. The technologies introduced in that segment were brilliantly simple, cost-effective and worthy of being the solution for a missing clean-up method. However, as Jay had said, the technologies would never get considered to clean the present oil spill (probably from political reasons again) and are claimed to be chosen for the “next” spill, only to be at a loss of clean up methods again in the next spill because they have conveniently forgotten about those previous methods.

I have a feeling that Matthews will act like she is genuinely reviewing the submissions to acknowledge what she had said to the pharmacy students, but will implement what was originally planned once the issues have sunken back into a low-profile status. I don’t doubt that the original plan of eliminating professional allowances to lower generic drug prices would remain. Personally, they can take that all away – it was frankly an area of less transparency in pharmacy that gives space for the public and government to slander the profession (which was exactly what happened). HOWEVER, the government MUST give back sufficient funding for pharmacy services. Like what the student tour advocated, without these pharmacy services, the profession cannot provide quality healthcare to patients of local communities. The question remains whether the public and the government realizes this.

Deb Matthews, prove me wrong this time and consider each submission carefully for its cost-effectiveness, for the sake of the pharmacy profession, the patients in Ontario and the quality of the healthcare system. I’ll even say PLEASE!