Pharmacists’ persistence “has run out” over the problem of opening hours, pharmaceutical affiliation chairman Ploutarchos Georgiades mentioned on Friday.
Chatting with the Cyprus Information Company, he mentioned his frustration is rooted in a court docket resolution to exempt a small variety of pharmacies from the legal guidelines regulating pharmacies’ opening hours.
He mentioned pharmacists have now been ready two years for a remaining resolution to be made, working inside the regulation, whereas pharmacies topic to the interim order have been in a position to set their very own working hours.
“We’ve been ready for 2 years for the court docket to decide. This was because of there being unlawful acts dedicated by different colleagues who noticed others working exterior the common hours,” he mentioned.
He defined that the decree on pharmacies’ opening hours determines working hours in addition to timetables set over longer intervals.
“They’re interrelated, one can not exist with out the opposite,” he mentioned, including that for that reason, the problem of which pharmacies would open and at what time had snowballed.
“Because of this, we ask that the court docket’s resolution be issued as quickly as doable as a result of to have the ability to make an exemption to the decree, the choice have to be issued in three months and never two years,” he mentioned.
With this in thoughts, he mentioned his affiliation now expects to satisfy with officers from the well being ministry “to see if their subsequent steps fulfill us or not”.
“We don’t need to take revenge on the world. We need to introduce order into specialised professions which require speedy intervention. There have to be regulation, the state should perceive this and never go away it unchecked,” he mentioned.
He added, “we should perceive that sufferers should know pharmacies’ opening hours, the place to go, and the place to be served after the pharmacies shut.”
Pharmacists have threatened to refuse to work in evenings and on public holidays because of the dispute, with October 1 – the day on which they’re set to switch to their winter opening hours schedule – the date set as the start of their deliberate motion.
Pharmaceutical companies director Elena Panagiotopoulou had mentioned a gathering would happen between the federal government and pharmacists with the goal of fixing the problem.
“We might want to discover how this situation may be solved. They should keep open so individuals can get the medicines that they want,” she mentioned.
Well being Minister Michael Damianos additionally spoke on the matter on Wednesday, trying to assuage issues.
“I guarantee you that the problem is being dealt with by the pharmaceutical companies and an answer might be discovered. Folks shouldn’t fear that underneath any circumstances they are going to be left with out medicines,” he mentioned.
