Malta’s south still waiting for Pharmacy Of Your Choice scheme

The POYC scheme, launched in the summer of 2007 by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, the Chamber of Small Enterprises (GRTU)  and the Chamber of Pharmacists, is not yet available in the 29 localities situated in the south of Malta.

Information sent by the Health Ministry shows that some 88 pharmacies are still waiting to be part of the POYC, whilst 98 pharmacies - including those in Gozo - are already offering this service.

In May 2008, during the launching of the scheme in a pharmacy in Rabat, government had announced that the scheme would be extended throughout the whole island by 2009. Three years later, a spokesperson from the Health Ministry says the target date is now 2012.

“This was an electoral gimmick,” shadow health minister Marie Louise Coleiro Preca told sister newspaper Illum this week. “The scheme was launched a few months before the 2008 general elections and government seems to be working on those districts where it knows it is popular with voters.”

Asked how the localities were chosen, Coleiro Preca said government never explained.

The Health Ministry said that even though the service is not yet available, all 29 localities form part of the extension plan. But Coleiro Preca insists that the scheme should not be extended until the recurring problem of medicines falling out of stock is resolved.

She claimed that the POYC has resolved nothing. “The only thing that changed was that instead of government employees, it is now private pharmacists who are facing people's complaints when medicines are out of stock.”

Colerio Preca added that government burdened pharmacies operating the POYC with serious administrative problems, with the consequence that the out-of-stock problem is “embarassing pharamcists.”

Earlier this month in an interview with MaltaToday, Health Minister Joe Cassar said that the whole methodology with which government buys medicine is outdated, prompting them to redesign the methodology. According to Cassar, the system is forcing government’s stock to run low.

Contacted by Illum, GRTU pharmacy owners section President Mario Debono said that the POYC is still opening area by area, “as soon as both government and pharmacies complete the infrastructural changes, increase manpower where needed and IT systems are installed.”

The 29 localities without the POYC scheme:

Paola, Tarxien, Il-Fgura, Sta Luċija, Birżebbuġa, Marsaxlokk, Żejtun, Marsaskala, Gudja, Għaxaq, Żabbar [and Xgħajra], Kalkara, Bormla, Isla, Birgu, Valletta, Marsa, Ħamrun, Floriana, Mqabba, Luqa, Safi, Kirkop, Qormi, Qrendi, Zurrieq, Siggiewi and Zebbug.