Ballarat pharmacies are pleading for patience as the federal govenrment's plan to distribute free rapid antigen tests to concession, pension, and veteran card holders begins.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Pharmacy owners from across the city have spoken out about the delays in acquiring orders of tests and the massive pressure from the public - according to one website, just two places in Ballarat had rapid antigen tests available on Monday afternoon.
UFS chief executive Lynne McLennan told The Courier the federal government's handling of the rollout was "abysmal".
"It's creating a lot of unnecessary workload in an already exhausted workforce," she said.
"The degree of difficulty and hardship being experienced by people in the frontline in health has been utterly compounded by the way it's being handled.
"The government's decided to make policy announcements without having any backup on supply or consultation with the frontline that will be delivering the policy announcements."
She urged people seeking rapid antigen tests to "please" stop phoning pharmacies asking for them - all UFS pharmacies, for example, will have signs out the front if RATs are sold out, and phone on-hold messages are being updated daily.
"We can't even do our work - I'm not blaming the public for this, but the federal government was running social media ads saying 'free rapid antigen tests are now available, go to this site to find them in your local community', and they weren't available, and all that does is put a huge amount of pressure on frontline healthcare workers.
"In our pharmacies, we're battling to get vaccinations done in addition to our existing workload; there's a huge labour shortage, obviously COVID has impacted our organisation just like everyone else; and we're taking who knows how many phone calls every day from people asking 'have you got any rapid antigen tests, I want my free tests' - well, we don't have any rapid antigen tests, and the government is responsible for that.
"It's probably the worst situation we've been in for the last two years of the pandemic, and it's one that could be prevented with better planning."
Across Ballarat, other pharmacies are also in limbo.
North Ballarat's Terry White Chemmart is expecting another delivery in at least a week, owner Murali Yamani said.
THE LATEST:
"We may be able to get some stock but maybe not all - that's where we're at as far as the communications are coming," he said.
"Fingers crossed from next Monday we'll be able to get some stock from wholesalers."
At Eureka Pharmacy, pharmacist James Millikan said enquiries had increased as the first day of school approached, but asked people to "work with us".
READ MORE: Melbourne duo arrested in rapid test theft
"We're no different to anyone else, still waiting on stock for concession card holders in Ballarat - it'll be about 10 more days, according to the last update," he said.
"We'll get a drop of 500 a week for eight weeks - that's the stock we'll devote to concession holders - but there's a lot of enquiries, everyone's really keen to get their hands on some, a lot of people are needing them to get their kids back to school, they're trying to get their ducks in a row.
"We'll endeavor to make the process as streamlined as possible when we finally get them.
"No one read the tea leaves on rapid antigen tests, not even the government, really."
Sturt Street's Crawford's Pharmacy has been trying to prioritise what supply it did get to the most vulnerable - owner Craig Trembath said there are large orders on the way.
"We've got 3500 in one order in, and another 4000," he said.
"What we have done, when we got them in, we prioritise them for people who were waiting for one before they saw a specialist, for example."
Ms McLennan also attacked the federal government's plan to reimburse pharmacies - right now, pharmacies are expected to buy the tests themselves and distribute them to concession card holders for free, recording each one, before the federal government pays them back $10 for each test and about $4 for handling.
"It's very poorly remunerated," she said.
IN THE NEWS
"That's less than the cost of buying the goods, transporting it to your pharmacy, and pharmacy staff issuing and recording.
"Pharmacies will do this, and we all will because our communities need this service, but they will all lose money.
"UFS is a non-profit, we're happy to do it at cost, but smaller private pharmacies won't be able to do that, they won't have the staff to deliver the extra service and they can't afford to pay $10 a test to get a number of tests in even if they are flowing through the supply chain.
"About 90 per cent of pharmacies in Australia are in the same boat, we cannot get supply, we cannot get a guarantee of supply, we're only getting a trickle every few weeks that's gone in five seconds."
Have you signed up to The Courier's variety of news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in Ballarat.
