The decisions announced by the government
The government is targeting 40 billion euros in savings, including 5 billion in health, according to Prime Minister François Bayrou. Several measures directly concern pharmacies. The first: double the annual medical ceiling on medicines. Currently, for each box reimbursed by health insurance, the patient pays a euro deductible. This remains at the expense is capped at 50 euros per year. The government plans to bring this ceiling to 100 euros. The second: the reimbursement of drugs “unrelated” to the disease, for patients in long -term affection (ALD). Finally, since July 1, duty pharmacies have been on strike against another measure desired by the government. As of August 1, the commercial discounts of laboratories to pharmacies would be capped at 30 %, compared to 40 % today. These discounts, essential to the balance of pharmacies, mainly concern generic drugs.
What is the concrete effect of government decisions on pharmacies?
Pharmacies income will necessarily decrease. And when the economy of a pharmacy hands up, the first lever is the staff. There will be a wave of layoffs. We will have to separate from preparers, for lack of choice, which will reduce our ability to carry out our missions. At the region’s level, there are more than 2,500 pharmacies scattered in the territory, and as many potential layoffs.
The second component concerns pharmacies in receivership, there are four of them in the region at the moment. There too, one can imagine that if these measures are put in place, there will be a considerable increase in the number of liquidation procedures or recovery procedures.
More generally, all these measures relate to our income when we are already economically fragile, many pharmacies will become very precarious.
What about its decision to double the annual medical ceiling on medical reimbursed drugs?
Very concretely, patients will have to give more. But if the person does not have this money, what do we do? We could give it the treatment and put it “in credit”, but often, money does not come back. Result: it is we who pay. It is a technically unrealizable and completely illusory measure.
Do you fear a deterioration in the relationship of trust with patients?
If our patients are unable to pay their medication and they are not given, the risk of tension is greater. In Bordeaux, four colleagues have already been molested. Physical and verbal violence exponentially increases, these measures will only make matters worse.
Risk is a strong feeling of discouragement in the profession. We are always asked more, we are complicated the task, especially in terms of prescriptions, with administrative heaviness. In rural areas, many hold good so as not to abandon their population. With this notion of drop in income, this fragile balance can yield.
Is it likely that pharmacies will close?
Unions evoke 5,000 to 6,000 pharmacy closings. We are already less than 20,000. This means that we would go to the fateful bar of 15,000. We are a particularly rural region and the risk that these areas are more affected is very likely.
It is still curious that we attack the pharmacy head -on, insofar as it is a profession which, precisely, has a much better distributed network than doctors and which provides first recourse care. Often people come to the pharmacy because they cannot see a doctor. It is a deep damage to rurality.
In the more isolated campaigns, there are already difficulties in finding pharmacie buyers. So there, for sure, there will not be, precisely because there will be a discouragement phenomenon. These pharmacies will eventually put the key under the door without finding a buyer, and will leave villages with nothing.
Did you use the political powers of the region?
I am a little disappointed because when these government measures were announced, I wrote to all the deputies and senators in the region. I had between 15 and 20 answers and I had none of the Lot-et-Garonne. One wonders if our elected officials consider the pharmacy as something essential for the maintenance of rurality and the first recourse care in our department.