Question 4003 — pharmacy and medications

Summary

Ms. Gisèle Lelouis alerts the Minister to the Minister of Labor, Health, Solidarity and Families, responsible for health and access to care, about working conditions in pharmacies and shortages of medicines which are becoming more and more frequent. Thursday May 30, 2024, 9 out of 10 pharmacies remained closed throughout France as reported by Le Point in an article published the same day. In Marseille, these are more than 500 pharmacists who paraded from the prefecture to the Old Port. Among them were pharmacists, preparers, representatives of the order and unions who expressed their anxiety at seeing their profession directly impacted. Medication shortages are very distressing for patients and difficult for pharmacies to manage. Pierre-Olivier Variot, who chairs the Union of Unions and Community Pharmacists (USPO) since 2021, explains, in an interview with RMC on May 31, 2024, that his colleagues spend an average of 12 hours a day finding medications for their patients. The increase in charges greatly harms the exercise of the profession of pharmacist because it causes a drop in profitability, especially since the titular pharmacist must pay the salary to a team often made up of 6 members bringing together pharmacists. assistants, pharmacy technicians and sales staff. All these hazards are forcing many establishments to close their doors, as evidenced by the 36 closures recorded in January 2024, twice as many as in 2023 at the same period. The risk of liberalization of the sale of medicines online also constitutes a risk factor for the pharmaceutical industry because it creates unfair competition. This market can prove dangerous if it is not well regulated because any individual could clandestinely sell pharmaceutical products without having a diploma and without having any real knowledge of the substance supplied. If shortages prevail in French pharmacies, many people will be tempted to obtain their medicines online, all without being warned of the side effects that their treatment can cause. generate and without real certainty that the product delivered is the right one if it is a question of “black market”. She therefore asks him what new actions he intends to take to combat drug shortages and meet the expectations of pharmacists and pharmaceutical staff.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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