The ongoing saga of the government's planned introduction of 60 day dispensation of medications at pharmacies is still bringing strong opinions from both sides of the argument.

Pharmacy Guild of Australia's National President Trent Twomey calls it "bad medicine for regional Australia".

"Sixty-day dispensing may sound good, but dig a little deeper and it’s rural and regional Australia that will pay," Mr Twomey said. "I fear patients won’t realise the true impact of 60-day dispensing until the pharmacy they’ve got, is gone."

Local pharmacists Sara McCarthy from Narromine and Colin Best from Trangie agree the clinical implications are terrible and break the communication and trust held between regional pharmacists and their customers.

"It's really disturbing," Ms McCarthy said. "We work so hard to have good relationships with locals, if this policy is introduced, it will be heart breaking. It's not about money, it's about community. If government passes this legislation, we will be forced to charge for what are now free services, like blood pressure testing, weighing babies and general health advice. We know our community and enjoy regular chats. If we don’t see customers for two months, who knows what might have happened?"

Under planned changes, pharmacies will be required to dispense 60 days (if requested) of medication for commonly used medicines, rather than the current 30 day supply.

Small pharmacies will suffer

While innocuous on the surface, Mr Best said the repercussions for small pharmacies will be disastrous.

"At the moment, on a $30 script, the government pays a dispensing fee plus a markup to pharmacies. Now, with two scripts being filled at once, that margin is no longer there," Mr Best said. "The government is trying to liken the scheme to that in other countries but in different countries, pharmacists have more autonomy than we have here. If this scheme is introduced, staff cut backs will be inevitable, and closure of some pharmacies will be highly likely."

While not all customers will opt for 60 day scripts, Mr Best said the majority of the medications on the list of eligibility is 80 - 90 per cent of the drugs that regional pharmacies dispense.

"It is a significant cut in income for pharmacies," Mr Best said. " While government reports suggest the cut will only be 1.5 per cent, more realistically it is 30 - 40 per cent."

The Pharmacy Guild's argument has been boosted by an independent review into the issues, carried out by economist Henry Ergas with the Relational Insights Data Lab at Griffith University.

It found the policy will lead to the loss of 20,818 community pharmacy jobs and the closure of 665 pharmacies nationwide.

However, it is in the regions the policy will be felt the most.

That’s because in rural and regional Australia it’s the local community pharmacist which is often not just the first point of primary healthcare, it’s the ONLY point of primary healthcare.

In fact, there are 332 localities in Australia where there is a pharmacy, but there is no GP surgery.

Guild rejects Government claims

"So much for the Government’s line “patients will be better off," Mr Twomey said.

"The Health Minister, Mark Butler’s response so far is, “Every single dollar saved by the Government will go back into pharmacy services,” but his Department’s figures just don’t add up. His government's own impact analysis says on average each pharmacy stands to lose $158,000 per year as a result of the 60-day dispensing policy."

Mr Twomey said the independent report says 60-day dispensing will rip $4.5 billion out of the frontline healthcare sector and yest the federal government says it is “re-investing” $1.2 billion.

"That’s like me borrowing $4,500 from you, paying back just $1200 and saying, “the debt is settled,” he said.

At Narromine, Ms McCarthy said the Pharmacy Guild have "been heavily behind pharmacists with their support,"

"It's so frustrating as government don’t seem to understand the disastrous implications on rural health. The potential flow on effects of customers not coming into a pharmacy for two months are huge."

The Guild says the policy will see a $3.5B cut to community pharmacies, leaving millions of patients across the country worse off after the change comes into effect on September 1.

*Image of Trent Twomey on original MR but not on Onenote