Rome, 21 June – The Lazio regional law n. 9/2024, which intervened in an important and not without surprise way (the provision deals with something completely different) regarding the distribution of medicines on behalf of the regional health service, continues to raise harsh reactions in the world of pharmacy. After the negative opinions expressed (also in an internal communication to the associated pharmacies) by Federfarma Roma, come those – this time absolutely public – from the regional coordination of Assofarm Lazio.
Which he expressed in an official statement signed by his regional coordinator Enrico Cellentani (in the picture) and announced yesterday, his clear opposition, “in method and merit”, with respect to the provisions contained in the art. 6 of the provision, which provide “a very strong reduction in the premium paid to local pharmacies” for the Dpc service, “bringing it to the minimum national level, without any weighting or motivation to justify the how and how much of this reduction, which would lead to an average cut in the budgets of pharmacies that could be around 20 thousand euros per year” for each exercise.
The Dpc deems it appropriate to remember Assofarm Lazio, “it is that system thanks to which some important drugs are purchased by the Regions but distributed to patients through pharmacies, a mechanism that greatly facilitates users who would otherwise have to go at local health authorities and hospitals”.
The new hypothesized rate, writes the Assofarm Lazio note, getting to the heart of the matter, “does not allow us to remunerate even the mere cost of the pharmacist staff assigned to managing the service, which for each operation fluctuates between 6 and 8 euros, without taking into account the structural costs, for fees which in some cases would be on the order of a EUR“.
The already precarious balance in which many municipal pharmacies find themselves, which often carry out their activities in marginal social or territorial conditions, to say the least, continues the note signed by Cellentani, “risks being seriously affected by this unjust initiative which, it should be remembered, was undertaken without the knowledge of the trade representatives who were also having direct discussions underway aimed at finding a point of balance between the different interests and legitimate expectations of the parties involved”.
The decision to intervene unilaterally and with a heavy cut on the DPC premiums for pharmacies, moreover, comes together with other choices that raise doubts and perplexities on what the regional government’s real consideration is on the role of pharmacies in the field of local healthcare : Lazio is in fact “one of the few (Regions) in which no experimentation has yet started regarding the remuneration of the NHS for the ‘service pharmacy’ and which has foreseen the exit from the pharmacy circuit of diagnostic devices for diabetics”.
For Assofarm Lazio, however, there is still room to review the provisions of law 9/2024: the regional coordination of publicly owned pharmacies, “in compliance with the mission of the association”, in fact he declares himself fully available “to work for an agreed revision of the aforementioned provision, within a framework of agreements and not of forcing, so that the role of pharmacies in general and public ones in particular can be strengthened and not weakened, encouraging the distribution of pharmaceutical assistance throughout the territory, the fair recognition of the commitment of pharmacies, the consolidation of pharmacy services”.
“We’ll be there” concludes the note from Assofarm Lazio. “But we hope to find everyone’s willingness to open a real discussion table, free from unilateral choices, since we want to avoid traumatic ruptures that would penalize citizens first and foremost”
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