«It is not true that the low per capita pharmaceutical expenditure of the ASL Cn1 is due to the extensive use of generics. On the contrary, in the ASL Cn1 the percentage of these prescribed products is the lowest among all the ASLs in Piedmont: 20% below the regional average». So the association of pharmacy owners.
Cuneo, pharmacies on strike against the ASL which broadcasts too much live coverage
The ASL does too much direct distribution and the pharmacies, exasperated, go on strike. It is happening in Cuneo, in Piedmont, where the pharmacists belonging to Federfarma have proclaimed a full day of closure for June 30th. The fault of the Healthcare Company, which for about a year and a half would have intensified live broadcasts with singular ferocity: «On average» explains the president of the Cuneo owners, Massimo Mana to Filodiretto «pharmacies register annual profits 30-40 thousand euros lower than in rest of Piedmont".
Weighs an ASL distribution which in the space of about fifteen months absorbed the 25% of the dpc practiced by pharmacies, as well as a substantial portion of affiliated drugs that hospitals dispense in discharge with supplies for several months of therapy. «First they began to supply all the rest homes directly» continues Mana «then they convinced the chronically ill to go and collect their medicines in the hospitals, thanks to the help of some family doctor who prescribes blankly. In some patients they have even replaced statins with Danacol, to save money».
It is difficult for Federfarma to give numbers, given that the ASL does not excel in terms of transparency. But the union has nonetheless managed to estimate the costs that the intensification of live broadcasts has passed on to the community: «In one year» sums up mana «the beneficiaries of the province have disbursed around 900 thousand euros out of their own pocket for travel expenses and queues at counters. In the city, things like these would have already caused the revolt to explode, in these parts people are more submissive and if they are ordered to travel 30 kilometers to go to the hospital to get their medicines, they just do it".
As far as it turns out, the hunger for savings that is gripping the ASL derives from the need to raise funds for the modernization of hospitals. But the intensification of the live coverage has triggered a boomerang effect that the Healthcare Company is now struggling to manage.
«By dint of squeezing the profits of pharmacies» Mana explains «in 2016 more than a dozen businesses fell below the threshold which entitles them to subsidized discounts. As a result, the ASL should repay around 300-400 thousand euros in deductions, but there is no money. And so, for some months now we have been witnessing a strange rebound: the company's general management has asked the Region how these sums should be repaid but the Region has not responded. As usual, two weights and two measures: if it is the pharmacy that has to pay back, the money must be given immediately; if it is the NHS, there is no hurry ».
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