Big, small pharmacies unite in fee fight

Like many pharmacy operators in Ontario, Bryan Hastie claims he'll have to cut staff if the province makes good on its threat to end the professional allowance paid to drug stores by generic drug manufacturers.

But in Hastie's case the cuts will be personal: he'll have to fire himself and his wife and close shop.

"If I didn't have the professional allowance income, I couldn't afford to pay myself," Hastie said in an interview from his Kitchener, Ont., pharmacy Thursday.

"And I make about a third of what a Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacist would make."

Hastie, who has owned a Medicine Shoppe franchise for three years, said the province's plan to end the funding in a bid to cut health-care costs will have the biggest impact on small, independent owners and operators.

Large drug store chains like Shoppers Drug Mart and Rexall, which have drawn most of the headlines in the industry's dispute with the government, will be in much better shape than smaller operators, Hastie said.

"Big pharmacies are easy because it's a corporation, its a faceless enemy … but the ones with the deepest pockets are going to suffer the least," he said.

Hastie said one alternative would be for him to double his $10 dispensing fee, but that might drive customers to the bigger chains and still force him out of business.

The association representing the province's independent pharmacists posted an ad in major newspapers Thursday urging consumers to fight the Ontario government's plan, which they say will cut at least $750 million from the drug store industry's revenues.

The Ontario government says ending so-called professional allowances will cut the price of generic drugs by at least 50 per cent, knocking $500 million a year off the cost to the province's public drug plan for seniors and others.

Similar price cuts can be expected for out-of-pocket buyers and employer benefit plans by 2014, the government says.

But the Independent Pharmacists of Ontario, echoing their larger rivals, says eliminating the allowances will reduce health services and lead to cuts in pharmacy hours and longer wait times.

It also means independent pharmacies — about half of all drug stores in Ontario — are at risk of closing their doors, Hastie said.

"I spent my entire professional allowance keeping my store open, and if my store isn't open, I can't provide direct patient care," he said.

An ad by Canada's largest drug store, Shoppers Drug Mart, published Wednesday called on customers to visit a website dedicated to fighting the government's plan that came out of the unlikely alliance between pharmacy giants and their smaller rivals that has formed around the issue.