The Tribune

By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

THE government and Bahamas Pharmaceutical Association have come to a “win-win” agreement that not only expanded the category of medications to the price control list, but set uniformed margins of 20 percent and 40 percent markups for retail and wholesale operators respectively.

 The compromise was announced yesterday, with Economic Affairs Minister Michael Halkitis saying it was “an even better outcome we believe than we originally had” in that now, medications for cancer and kidney ailments will be included.

 Mr Halkitis said the changes would come into effect with the stroke of a pen yesterday evening, the culmination of a solution that was agreed during a meeting at 4pm on Wednesday.

 It came after private pharmacies were urged by their association to “temporarily” close earlier in the week due to being unable to resolve the price control expansion dispute by the November 1 deadline.

 However, the closures were short-lived as many pharmacies opened the same day they closed.

 “We focused yesterday on ease of implementation, how could we assist the pharmacies in complying and reduce the workload that they have to do and we came up with a solution to that as well and we were able to agree a list and have some additional items added,” the minster said yesterday during a press conference at the Office of the Prime Minister.

 “So all in all we think it’s a win-win and we look forward to working with the association in educational processes as we go forward.”

 He also said: “Our original amendment had margins ranging from in some cases 15 percent. Some were 18, some were 35 and some were 40 and the association expressed that it would be easier for them if they had one wholesale margin and one retail margin instead of two different margins for wholesale and two different margins for retail.

 “They have so many SKUs, which means individual items and so it would be easier for them if they had a single margin for wholesale and a single margin for retail.

 “What we did basically is split the difference so we agreed on 20 percent for wholesale and 40 percent for retail bearing in mind we were ranging between 15 and 40 anyway so it’s virtually the same, but what we did was just to have one margin for wholesale and one margin for retail. So, a retail pharmacist does not have to go through their inventory and decide which is 35 and which is 40.

 “As part of our discussion also we are able to include oncology, which is cancer and nephrology, kidney drugs, which is a huge add and so a very positive outcome and so we are thankful to the association for being able to come and it’s an even better outcome we believe than we originally had by being able to relax a little bit on the margin and we got those additional drugs put in.”

 Chargrega McPhee, a representative of the pharmacy association, said the government expressed a keen desire to ensure noncommunicable diseases were included in the list to allow affordable medications.

 “With that in mind we looked at the price control amendment list that took care of a lot of categories that we know are important - your antihypertensives, your diabetic medications, your cardiovascular drugs.

“But we also said as pharmacists in the community we’re looking at where The Bahamas is going. We need to add a little more and we want to help the government to reach that mandate so we also added cancer medications as well as kidney or renal medications to that list. So, along with the price control amendment grouping we’ve also added cancer drugs and kidney drugs.

 “We used the World Health Organisation essential drug 2021 list as our basis and even in looking at that again the WHO looks at global. So, we wanted to make sure to look a tad closer to home. So our team sat down and we said: ‘You know what minister? We’ve got some more drugs that we’d like to add to this list.’ So, what you will be seeing is along with the WHO list, we’ve actually added quite a few more supplemental drugs to that list all in an effort to ensure that the Bahamian populace does have access to better priced medications.”