Rome, 10 May – The shortage of pharmacists is a complex problem, generated over time and by multiple factors, for which a systemic and rapid response is needed: this is the summary that emerged yesterday from the meeting of the federal council of Assofarm, the acronym of the municipal pharmacies, which among other issues also addressed that of the scarcity of professional resources, which risks creating (and in fact is already doing so) serious problems for the functionality of the pharmaceutical service ensured by the network of public and private local pharmacies.
“Reductions in opening hours due to lack of staff are no longer cases
isolated, but even increasing” confirms the president of Assofarma Luca Pieri (in the picture): “And the numbers on new students enrolled in pharmacy faculties cast an alarming shadow over the near future. The great efforts made to relaunch the local pharmacy, providing it with new services and a more organic integration with the NHS, risk being wasted due to the progressive lack of the professional raw materials it needs to function and grow”.
In the opinion of the world of Italian municipal pharmacies, however, there are at least three concrete ways forward to deal with the worrying situation, the first of which is certainly the increase in the salary levels of employed pharmacists, the element that more than any other could push young people to imagine their professional future in private and public pharmacies. Wage increases are indeed an objective but – observes Pieri realistically – “they can only be achieved with measures that relaunch the profitability of our companies, first
among all the Services Pharmacy”.
Second path, the development of corporate welfare mechanisms that offer tangible benefits
parallel to the salary and can improve the quality of life of its employees.
A third solution could be to introduce the professional figure of the pharmacist’s assistant, a figure already tested in other European countries and which would be trained through a short degree. It would carry out logistical and administrative distribution functions, obviously leaving the pharmacist to supervise the dispensing of the drug and the direct consultancy relationship with the patient. An option which, in truth, is quite controversial and has already met with opposition from large sectors of the profession.
“We must therefore act on at least two strategic fronts” says Pieri. “From a
On the other hand, we must relieve the pharmacist of tasks that a technician can also do
adequately trained, and on the other hand we need to create more pharmacists. Result,
the latter, obtainable only if the career as an employed pharmacist is a job
professionally interesting and economically rewarding”.
: “It is urgent to intervene on multiple fronts”){kind=link}