had risen to double-digits<\/a>. The then Labour-led government reduced the charge to $3, which rose to $5 in 2013 under the following National-led government.<\/p>\nIn recent years big-box pharmaceutical retailers have started absorbing that cost, essentially making prescriptions free and giving them an advantage over smaller, locally owned outlets.<\/p>\n
Gaudin said for a typical pharmacy to absorb the cost would mean taking a $120,000 hit. Unable to do so, 70 community pharmacies have closed in the last four years, according to the Pharmacy Guild. Last year alone saw 30 shut their doors.<\/p>\n
In Auckland, Seema Rambisheswar permanently closed her Life Pharmacy store in Glenfield Mall just over a week ago, after working there for 22 years and owning it for 14.<\/p>\n
“It’s quite sad the time has come for me to close,” she told\u00a0Nine to Noon.<\/i><\/p>\n
The writing was on the wall in 2020, when right after Covid-19 hit, a Chemist Warehouse opened in the same mall. Her landlord, assuming she’d struggle with rent, offered her a smaller venue.<\/p>\n
“I said no because if I did that, I’d have to refit a store and defit my existing store\u2026 that would just not have been viable.”<\/p>\n
She said big stores that don’t charge the copayment have led customers into wrongly believing that pharmacies who do charge are pocketing the money.<\/p>\n
“They have to realise it doesn’t. We collect it. We’re tax collectors. We collect it on behalf of the government and then we have to pay it back to the government. It doesn’t stay in our tills.<\/p>\n
“Now that I’m closing, people are [saying], ‘We will pay you, please don’t close.’ But it’s too late. I’m at a point of no return\u2026<\/p>\n
“They’re using the copayment as a loss-leader. People are not looking at the bigger picture\u2026 they need to wake up, because long-term there will be problems.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
SOURCE RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The head of the Pharmacy Guild says community pharmacies are shutting down thanks to the influx of Australian-owned discount chains. Chief executive Andrew Gaudin warns in the long-term, this will reduce access to essential healthcare services – particularly for people outside the main centres. Discount pharmacies like the Chemist Warehouse and Countdown supermarket stores do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2855,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2853\/revisions\/2855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}