March 2023

After Cyclone Gabrielle battered Aotearoa New Zealand’s northeastern regions last month, pharmacists in affected areas mounted a heroic effort to ensure their communities stayed supplied with vital medicines. Paulette Crowley and Jonathan Chilton-Towle report on some of those stories

FOLLOWING THE DISASTER, pharmacy sector leaders have been meeting with health authorities to organise support for disaster-affected pharmacies.

The Chemist Warehouse are advertising they’ve saved New Zealander’s $42 million while community pharmacies close as they can’t absorb the costs of prescription co-payments 

Incoming health minister Ayesha Verrall recognises that the $5 prescription copayment is a barrier to patients accessing medicines – but she has no plans to remove it. 

PHARMACISTS SAY they are receiving written discharge summaries from hospitals that are recommending patients to get their prescriptions filled at discount pharmacies for free prescriptions.

Northland clinical pharmacist shares her views on how pharmacists can work with rongoā Māori and why the indigenous healing system should not be legislated.

PHARMACISTS have been told to dispense only a week’s worth of the anti-anxiety and depression medicine fluoxetine, but a Ranfurly pharmacist says that is worrying some patients and shows the system isn’t working.

Thousands of Kiwi women have signed a petition to Pharmac seeking fully funded oestrogen gels. Paulette Crowley reports

In our series “A great place to work”, Pharmacy Today highlights positivity into pharmacy pharmacies offering a work culture that attracts and retains staff. This month, we visit south Auckland. Natasha Jojoa Burling reports 

A NEW FACE has joined the teams at the Life Pharmacy Prices in Nelson and Unichem Springlands Pharmacy in Blenheim.