Pharmacy chiefs scramble for solution to row over opening hours

The pharmaceutical council is set to hold an extraordinary meeting to find a solution to the threat of pharmacies to remain closed during nights and bank holidays, it emerged on Thursday.

Speaking to CyBC, the director of the pharmaceutical services Elena Panagiotopoulou said that the meeting will be held in response to the pharmacists’ association threat not to open at nights or on bank holidays starting October 1.

“We will need to find how this issue can be solved. They need to stay open so that people can get the medicines that they need,” she said.

Panagiotopoulou did not elaborate on the meeting, but she said she hoped that a solution would be found.

She added that she is aware of the problems the pharmacists’ association had raised on the matter, including the issue of some pharmacies opening as they please and violating the legal working hours.

She said that the pharmaceutical services run checks and sometimes the police are used to deal with the matter.

However, she added that it is difficult to check that pharmacies are operating according to the law, and generally it is done following a complaint against a specific pharmacy found to be in violation of operating hours.

“There is a lot of work being done to see that they are opening properly, if there is a complaint then we go to check and see that they are operating correctly,” she said.

She added that she knows that seven pharmacists had filed to court to have the hours normalised, but a solution needs to be found so the pharmacists do not shut their doors during nights and bank holidays.

Speaking after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Health Minister Michael Damianos also tried to assuage people’s concerns.

“I assure you that the issue is being handled by the pharmaceutical services and a solution will be found. People should not worry that under any circumstances they will be left without medicines,” he said.

On Wednesday, the pharmacists expressed their intention to close outside regular working hours from October 1, when the winter working hours start, because seven pharmacies across Cyprus have been granted an interim order by the court, which essentially allows them to open as they choose.

Speaking to Reporter website, the head of the pharmaceutical association, Ploutarchos Georgiades said: “We have been waiting two years [for the court to decide on the interim order] and we are working holidays and nights, while a pharmacy next door with an interim order can open whenever it wants.”

“This is unfair,” he added.

Georgiades said that there is a decree from the health ministry on the working hours of pharmacies and the holiday and night working hours of pharmacies.