The pharmaceutical council is ready to carry a unprecedented assembly to discover a resolution to the specter of pharmacies to stay closed throughout nights and financial institution holidays, it emerged on Thursday.
Chatting with CyBC, the director of the pharmaceutical providers Elena Panagiotopoulou mentioned that the assembly might be held in response to the pharmacists’ affiliation risk to not open at nights or on financial institution holidays beginning October 1.
“We might want to discover how this problem may be solved. They should keep open so that folks can get the medicines that they want,” she mentioned.
Panagiotopoulou didn’t elaborate on the assembly, however she mentioned she hoped {that a} resolution could be discovered.
She added that she is conscious of the issues the pharmacists’ affiliation had raised on the matter, together with the difficulty of some pharmacies opening as they please and violating the authorized working hours.
She mentioned that the pharmaceutical providers run checks and generally the police are used to cope with the matter.
Nonetheless, she added that it’s tough to test that pharmacies are working in accordance with the legislation, and customarily it’s performed following a criticism towards a particular pharmacy discovered to be in violation of working hours.
“There’s numerous work being performed to see that they’re opening correctly, if there’s a criticism then we go to test and see that they’re working accurately,” she mentioned.
She added that she is aware of that seven pharmacists had filed to court docket to have the hours normalised, however an answer must be discovered so the pharmacists don’t shut their doorways throughout nights and financial institution holidays.
Talking after a cupboard assembly on Wednesday, Well being Minister Michael Damianos additionally tried to assuage folks’s considerations.
“I guarantee you that the difficulty is being dealt with by the pharmaceutical providers and an answer might be discovered. Folks mustn’t fear that beneath any circumstances they are going to be left with out medicines,” he mentioned.
On Wednesday, the pharmacists expressed their intention to shut exterior common working hours from October 1, when the winter working hours begin, as a result of seven pharmacies throughout Cyprus have been granted an interim order by the court docket, which basically permits them to open as they select.
Chatting with Reporter web site, the pinnacle of the pharmaceutical affiliation, Ploutarchos Georgiades mentioned: “We’ve been ready two years [for the court to decide on the interim order] and we’re working holidays and nights, whereas a pharmacy subsequent door with an interim order can open each time it desires.”
“That is unfair,” he added.
Georgiades mentioned that there’s a decree from the well being ministry on the working hours of pharmacies and the vacation and evening working hours of pharmacies.
