Alberta’s well being minister held a information convention on Thursday to speak a couple of main growth of pharmacy care clinics by Consumers Drug Mart within the province.
“This important funding of $77 million will profoundly affect our province, guaranteeing better entry to main take care of Albertans and additional strengthening our health-care system,” Adriana LaGrange mentioned whereas talking to reporters in Edmonton.
Consumers Drug Mart says it plans to open 44 extra pharmacy care clinics in Alberta this yr. The clinics might be within the retailer’s pharmacies and supply providers like evaluation and therapy of colds, pink eye and urinary tract infections.
“This dedication by Consumers Drug Mart to spend money on main care in Alberta’s communities aligns with our authorities’s ongoing efforts to refocus the health-care system,” LaGrange mentioned.
In Alberta, pharmacists can assess sufferers and prescribe drugs for minor sicknesses and accidents, administer vaccines and help with managing continual sickness.
Whereas LaGrange steered she welcomes the information of Consumers Drug Mart increasing its providers on this realm and that she believes it might assist ease the pressure felt by hospitals and household medical doctors, others questioned the importance of the announcement.
“This isn’t in any means, form or type a substitute for a rise in entry to the necessary skilled public well being care acquired by front-line professionals like medical doctors and nurses,” Opposition Chief Rachel Notley mentioned, including that doesn’t imply it’s not useful for pharmacists to have the ability to help additional within the health-care sector.
“The announcement as we speak is simply not a substitute for that. It doesn’t matter what you name it, what you model it, it’s not a household physician, it’s no more nurses.”
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Lorian Hardcastle, an affiliate professor with the Cumming Faculty of Medication on the College of Calgary, mentioned whereas pharmacists play an necessary function within the well being sector and that Alberta has been a pacesetter when it comes to increasing scope of apply for pharmacists, she has some considerations.
“The priority with what we’re seeing right here is, very like when the federal government was pushing Telus and a few of these digital health-care providers, it’s actually a Band-Assist resolution to individuals not having constant entry to a daily main care supplier,” she mentioned.
“Whereas a digital walk-in clinic or a pharmacist can patch individuals via in an emergency scenario the place a prescription has run out or they develop the signs of a urinary tract an infection in a single day, or these kinds of points, in the end what we would like is for individuals to have a constant medical residence with a household physician that manages their well being over an extended time period.”
She famous that pharmacists are particularly skilled on remedy.
“Sufferers might are available in with points that may be solved with remedy, however in the end these situations might produce other facets to them — way of life elements, these kinds of issues — that may be higher mentioned doubtlessly with a doctor.”
Premier Danielle Smith mentioned she believes the Consumers Drug Mart growth is a step ahead for main care within the province.
“Alberta’s health-care system is underneath extreme pressure and it has been for a very long time,” she mentioned.
“There’s an pressing want to search out fixes and ship accessible care quick and effectively.”
Notley mentioned she believes the federal government must do extra to stabilize the health-care system, indicating that extra may very well be performed to enhance the therapy of nurses and that the province ought to transfer extra rapidly to permit nurse practitioners to open their very own clinics.
Notley added that she worries that the Consumers Drug Mart growth may very well be “a part of an effort to get individuals used to paying for elements of their well being care.”
Carmen Wyton, the chair of the Ladies’s Well being Coalition of Canada, known as Thursday’s announcement thrilling and mentioned it’s “very important at the moment” to take new approaches in main care.
“There must be extra gateways than simply household physicians and walk-in clinics to handle the on a regular basis wants,” Wyton mentioned. “The place I’m a bit of bit extra involved is that main care doesn’t characterize ladies’s well being nicely.
“(It’s) nice that there’s extra gateways, however we have to guarantee that these gateways have the capability and capabilities to maintain all Albertans.
“Pharmacists are a key to advancing ladies’s well being as a result of they’ve the capabilities, they’ve the scope of apply, we simply want to ensure they’ve that emphasis on gynecological well being.”
Wyton added that the “challenges that we’ve got within the health-care system might be addressed via progressive approaches, and I believe that is the beginning of them.”
Consumers Drug Mart opened its first pharmacy care clinic in Lethbridge, Alta., in June 2022.
Consumers Drug Mart is owned by Loblaw Firms Ltd.
–with information from The Canadian Press and World Information’ Caley Gibson and Kabi Moulitharan
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