THE DIRECTOR of one of the State’s largest pharmacy chains believes the demands placed on its stores in recent days because of the dispute between pharmacists and the Health Service Executive (HSE) should ease today.
Rhys Iley of Boots, which operates 48 pharmacies, said he expected the demand for prescriptions to lessen today as doctors’ surgeries would be closed and the High Court has ordered 35 other pharmacies to reopen.
Donegal, Waterford, Mayo, north Dublin and Wexford were said to be the areas worst affected yesterday. “Certain places have been extraordinarily busy, particularly our two stores in Letterkenny,” said Mr Iley.
“Waterford and Wexford and Kilkenny and Swords and The Square in Tallaght have also been under pressure all week.”
Mr Iley said that for patient safety reasons some stores had closed yesterday to allow pharmacists to get on top of a backlog of prescriptions caused by “unprecedented demands”.
“We have not turned away any urgent prescriptions but some people with non-urgent prescriptions were asked to come back on Monday in places like Waterford.”
Cormac Tobin of Unicare, which has 72 stores across the country, said he expected its stores to remain busy until the dispute was resolved. Mr Tobin said Unicare temporarily closed a number of its stores yesterday to ease a backlog of prescriptions.
Mr Tobin said the situation was getting dangerous and had the potential to become even more so.
“We can’t continue to sustain this pressure through next week – we’re not set up for it,” he said.
In Mayo, delays were reported at the HSE pharmacies in Castlebar and Belmullet, and in Co Donegal three pharmacies in Letterkenny had to close at lunchtime because of the demand to fill prescriptions.
The HSE Helpline yesterday said the Stranorlar dispensary was still dealing with Tuesday and Wednesday’s prescriptions and advised the public not to go to the dispensary as it was inundated by the volume of prescriptions.
Vera McKinley queued on Tuesday and Wednesday night in Carndonagh in Co Donegal and was provided with a small amount of medication for her husband, who recently underwent heart surgery, by the local pharmacist at around midnight on Wednesday.
Ms McKinley rang the HSE Stranorlar twice on Thursday to find out when her husband’s medication would come. “They asked me if I would come to Stranorlar to get it and I told them I couldn’t get from here, near Malin, it’s over 50 miles. They then told me the medication would arrive in Carndonagh on Friday evening. I hope it does,” Ms McKinley said.
