Madam, - It is all too easy to dismiss pharmacists' actions as showing "disdain" for their patients and customers ( Letters, October 16th). This simplistic assessment is unfair to the pharmacists and reflects a fundamental misinterpretation of the issue at hand.
Any business needs customers to survive. That any group should resort to refusing turnover shows that a deep malaise affects a relationship - in this case with the testosterone-fuelled HSE.
It is painfully evident that Prof Drumm and his charges have been spoiling for a fight with pharmacists. They refused to negotiate since last December, hiding behind the cloak of vague legal generalities. No such problem seemed to exist when Prof Drumm negotiated with his own colleagues, the medical consultants.
A manager is supposed to manage. In the real world, as exemplified by Aer Lingus and others, the managements sit down, negotiates and resolves issues.
In the rarefied atmosphere of the HSE edicts are issued with, presumably, the full knowledge that they are totally unreasonable and provocative. The HSE has belligerently stated that from December 1st it will no longer reimburse me the cost price of the medicines that I dispense to, among others, medical card holders. It expressed the view that my suppliers might take pity on me and reduce their prices. The wholesalers have already written to me and told me that they will not.
From December 1st the medical card scheme will become totally untenable for me and most of my colleagues. No number of letters from the competition authority will change that. The HSE must show leadership and talk to me and my colleagues. The potential consequences for the 1.4 million medical card holders, and others, are too terrible to contemplate. - Yours, etc,
JACK SHANAHAN, The Medical Hall, Castleisland, Co Kerry.