John: Finding a neighborhood
pharmacist is becoming
increasingly challenging.
Over the past two years, the
nation's three biggest pharmacy
chains with brick and mortar
stores, CVS, Walgreens, and rite
aid, which has filed for
bankruptcy, have either closed
or announced plans to close
hundreds of stores.
And at many of the remaining
locations, pharmacy workers say
working conditions have gotten
worse.
That's led to unannounced
walkouts, and this coming week,
a planned walkout at Walgreens
nationwide.
Tom Murphy is the associated
press, national health writer.
Tom, I know you've been talking
to pharmacists at Walgreens and
elsewhere.
What are they telling you about
why they're taking these job
actions?
Tom: Well, the biggest thing
they're stressing is this isn't
about money.
They're not seeking more pay.
They just need more help behind
the counter.
That's what they tell me.
They've been stressed,
especially by all the vaccines
they have to give now,
especially in the fall when you
have covid shots and flu shots
and pneumonia vaccines coming
into your store every day.
They want more help behind the
counter because they said their
main job is obviously filling
and checking prescriptions
and every time you have to break
away from that to do a vaccine,
it puts more stress on the main
job.
A lot of times there's only one
pharmacist behind the counter,
and they can't break away for a
bathroom break or the pharmacy
has to close.
They're also being asked to do a
lot more with health care.
A lot of them help people quit
smoking or monitor their blood
sugar.
So they need help with these
tasks in order to do their main
job, which is filling
prescriptions and checking them
for accuracy.
Chain stores tend to operate
with one pharmacist on duty
instead of having overlapping
shifts or multiple pharmacists
on duty.
And that means the pharmacist
can't leave the counter because
you can't operate a pharmacy
without a pharmacist on duty.
John: What do the chain stores
say in response to this?
Tom: They say they are listening
to their concerns.
Walgreen's, for instance, has
opened a bunch of processing
centers around the country to
process a lot of the chronic
prescriptions that patients get
regularly, which will take
workload off the store
pharmacists.
CVS is doing some things, too,
but so far the pharmacists have
not seen enough to alleviate
their concerns.
John: How much is the changing
economics of the pharmacy
industry, I mean, we've seen
sort of great expansion now,
retraction, the rise of pharmacy
by mail.
How much of that has led to
these these problems?
Tom: All those factors have
definitely contributed to the
problem.
The biggest one is pharmacies
just don't get a lot of money
for the prescriptions they fill,
so they're left with what's
called a thin margin.
So they have to make money
elsewhere and vaccines uh can be
lucrative for them.
The other problem is that
they've added a lot of stores
15, 20 years ago to get closer
to the consumer.
And then Amazon got much closer
to the consumer and it is taking
business away from what's called
the front of their stores, which
is the area outside the pharmacy
where a lot of their consumer
goods are sold.
John: What's the effect on the
consumer of all of this?
Tom: With the consumer, there
can be really long waits for
prescriptions.
You could come into the
drugstore and find that the
drugstore is temporarily closed
because there isn't a pharmacist
on duty.
It also exacerbates problems
with drug shortages.
I had a pharmacist tell me that
one day last fall, he took 100
phone calls during the day just
for shortages of amoxicillin and
adderall.
John: With so many physical
stores closing, are we in danger
of having neighborhoods where
there is no nearby pharmacy?
Tom: That's always a risk,
especially in poorer
neighborhoods that have a lot of
medicaid patients, because they
just don't make a lot of money
for the drugstore.
So financially, it might not
make much sense for the
drugstores to stay open in some
of those neighborhoods.
John: And what about rural
areas?
Are there concerns about
pharmacies disappearing in rural
areas?
Tom: Yeah, it is a different
dynamic.
Instead of a drugstore being a
few blocks away, a pharmacy
desert in rural areas is
considered.
A drugstore is maybe five miles
away.
But that is a problem.
And rite aid was actually trying
to address it earlier this year
with a really small program
where they opened many stores in
so-called pharmacy deserts near
areas where there aren't a lot
of pharmacies.
John: You mentioned Walgreens
setting up these distribution
centers to handle a lot of the
prescriptions.
Is it getting to the point where
we really don't need a brick and
mortar pharmacy?
Tom: Not quite, because
pharmacists play a really
valuable role in talking to
people about their medicines and
making sure that they have the
right dose or talking to them
about side effects and how to
manage those or just seeing how
they're feeling.
And if you're at a processing
center filling a prescription
and not talking to the customer,
you lose that.
So there's still a lot of value
for those brick and mortar
stores.
John: Tom Murphy of the
associated press, thank you very
much.
Tom: Thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
♪♪