$1 million for pharmacist shortage

BY GAZETTE STAFF
The Southern Gazette

Eastern Health has announced it will offer pharmacists a temporary $12,000 market differential allowance. It’s an effort to address the pharmacist shortage and an increasing vacancy rate.

The total cost of the additional allowance will reach approximately $1 million.

The health authority also plans to make new organizational investments in recruitment and professional development.

President and Chief Executive Officer George Tilley admitted "this has been a challenging period for Eastern Health.

"We hope this interim measure will stabilize our service by retaining our current pharmacists and assist us in attracting pharmacists to our organization so we can refocus on meeting the needs throughout the region, especially in clinical pharmacy services."

The market differential allowance is for the life of the current collective agreement and will be paid out semi-annually with a return in service agreement signed prior to payment.

Mr. Tilley indicated although Eastern Health had hoped the government would be in a position to work through this issue provincially, "we appreciate the government’s need to deal with this through the collective bargaining process and have decided to deal with this internally."

He agreed pharmacists are integral to the provision of care in the region. Eastern Health’s priority is to ensure the needs of patients, clients and residents are met and to make sure pharmacists, and other care providers, are able to work effectively to meet the needs of individuals the organization serves.

Eastern Health will continue to work within the contingency plans currently in place and monitor the situation closely.

Source