Chemist Warehouse will consider offering FREE prescription drugs if strict regulations are changed
- Under existing laws, pharmacies cannot discount co-payment by more than $1
- Chemist Warehouse wants that rule to be changed so it can offer free drugs
- Another law prevents a new chemist from setting up within 1.5km of another
- The company wants this scrapped because it is stopping it setting up in regions
Chemist Warehouse will consider making prescription drugs free if strict rules are changed.
Under existing laws, pharmacies can only discount a co-payment by $1 per script.
Chemist Warehouse wants this rule to be scrapped so that it can considering offering products for free.
It could then charge the patient nothing and only take government subsidies and dispensing fees as payment.
Chemist Warehouse already does this in New Zealand where rules are less stringent.
Chemist Warehouse will consider making prescription drugs free if strict rules that prevent it from expanding are changed
The company also says it wants to set up stores in 60 regional areas but is not allowed to due government regulations.
Under the Community Pharmacy Agreement, a new pharmacy cannot be set up within 1.5km of an existing pharmacy.
The rules are preventing Chemist Warehouse from setting up in regional towns, meaning meaning many Australians cannot access its discounted products, the company says.
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Mario Tascone, Chief Operating Officer, said its time the regulations were changed.
'There are number of restricted rules, we want them loosened so that we can operate freely and give more value to Australia with affordable medicine,' he told Melbourne radio station 3AW.
'Relocation laws stifle competition.
'If we could free up the pharmacy system, free prescriptions are definitely an option we'd like to put on the table.'
Mr Tascone said few other industries are regulated so harshly, pointing out that if he ran a butcher or a baker he could set up anywhere.
Chemist Warehouse says it wants to set up stores in 60 regional areas but is not allowed to due government regulations
But the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, which represents individually owned pharmacies, insists there is no need to change the rules.
The pharmacy location laws are designed to make sure there is an even spread of chemists across the country.
Anthony Tassone, President of the Victorian Branch of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, said they are working well and that 87 per cent live within 2.5km of a chemist.
The guild fears that if rules are changed Chemist Warehouse will undercut smaller stores and wipe them out.
'Here we have a pharmacy group behaving like a big corporate, they don't like the rules as they are because they don't suit their agenda or growth pattern,' said Mr Tassone.
'Why should we be unraveling a system that has produced equitable access to Australians.'
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