AUSTRALIAN PHARMACISTS divided over medical certificates

THE CASE

As part of the dreaded "WorkChoices" package, the then Minister for Health Tony Abbott announced that all health professionals, as defined under State Law, would be entitled to issue medical certificates. It was

"a direct result of the Howard Government's 2006 WorkChoices legislation, which gives employers much greater scope to demand medical certificates than they used to."

Whilst pharmacists are without doubt the most accessible of all the health professionals, the various community pharmacy industry groups behaved exactly to script.

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia (PGA) rubbed its metophorical hands at the mere thought of dollar signs. The Guild is the association of pharmacy proprietors, its role is to look after the (mainly financial) interest of it's members.

The Pharmaceutical Society (PSA) is a largely educative organisation, dedicated to improving the professionality of all pharmacists. The Society set about developing a set of protocols and standards.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) was so annoyed that its president called pharmacists "non-medical people", another spokesperson hinted that patients were going to die, and said pharmacists were not qualified or professional enough to decide when a patient was unfit for work. Besides which the $20 or $30 was better off in doctors rather than pharmacists pockets.

I think most pharmacists would be insulted to be labelled along with iridologists, ear candlers and astromancers as "non-medical people". Perhaps the AMA is expecting this kind of thing, "I certify that Audrey Smith is unfit to work on 14/02/2008 because Mercury is already in retrograde, and the Moon enters Gemini as the Sun trines with Mars." or more likely "Purchase cough and cold medicines to the value of $40.00 and for only $10.00 more receive a bonus personalised 2 day medical certificate!"

But the Brisbane Courier Mail reports that:

"patients are asking time-pressured GPs to write twice as many medical certificates as a decade ago, apparently to meet employers' demands."

so doctors should really consider it a blessing.

The upshot is that the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) and the Pharmacy Guild of Australia (PGA) have issued joint guidelines that specify whether a pharmacist should write a certificate or if it is would be more appropriate to refer the patient to a doctor. The process outlined by the PSA guidelines is rigorous, professional and fairly onerous.

However the union representing employed pharmacists has recommended that its members refuse to issue them. Geoff March the President of the pharmacists division of the Association of Professional Engineers Scientists and Managers Australia (APESMA) said that pharmacists simply have neither the time nor the facilities to issue medical certificates.

A survey of pharmacist indicated that about one third would issue certificates, one third would not, and the final third were fence sitters.

MY VERDICT

See, everyone was conforming to script. The Pharmacy Guild looked forward to the profits, the Pharmaceutical Society designed protocols, the AMA says "We wuz robbed !" and the union (APESMA) wants higher wages for less hours work.

DISCLOSURE OF INTERESTS

I am not a member of any of the organisations named above.