To the editor:
Re: Ask Your Pharmacy What it Charges to Fill Your Prescribed Needs, March 16 Capital News.
In response to letter writer Diane Bognar: You had me in agreement all the way until your last paragraph.
I agree with you that “consumers have to question the pharmacist before we leave a prescription as to whether or not they charge their customers over and above the amount Pharmacare will pay.” Makes lots of sense—no different from dealing with any other business.
And, I agree with you that “we can decide if we want to use that pharmacy or go to one that charges only within the Pharmacare amount.” Again, perfect sense.
I can’t agree with you, however, in the last paragraph where you feel that the government needs to make new regulations to prevent pharmacies from running their business in the best way they see fit. I am strongly of the opinion that governments at all levels interfere unnecessarily in our lives too much already—I’m sure the market place can, and will, determine which pharmacies (or any other business for that matter) keep their customers and which ones lose their customers.
You say that “in numbers we can stand up and let our voices be heard and then, just maybe, change will happen.”
I totally agree, however; I guarantee that change will happen a lot faster if the majority of customers leave that particular pharmacy in question than if we wait for Victoria or Ottawa to “do something on our behalf.”
Thank you, Diane, for bringing an important, and perhaps little understood, issue into the light.
Lloyd Vinish,
Kelowna
