Tying up loose ends: Deb Matthews Meeting

Hi everyone

I know you've been eagerly awaiting some more info about the Deb Matthews private interview with 5 students. Stephen Pahuta, a third year student, was kind enough to write a bit of a summary of the discussion that took place in Minister Matthews' office:

"My first question for Minister Matthews was how she could claim that this is a battle with big pharmacy chains, when in fact; certain stores have released statements that that they will be expanding stores with pharmacies in spite of these cuts because operating stores with pharmacies is good for their business. Unfortunately, she interrupted me half way through the question but the expression on her face was as if she understood what I was asking but was not prepared to answer it. My personal belief is that these cuts will force all independent pharmacies out of business and our profession will operate as a loss leader being represented by businesses more interested in selling food and general merchandise. This may be the business model the ministry is following to decrease pharmacy costs.

My second question was if she realized that the Medscheck program has not been fully utilized because pharmacists find it difficult to find time to spend a half hour with patients and still continue to provide our existing essential services. By removing 750 million dollars of funding to our existing services, has her ministry done an assessment of what current services they should stop providing in order to have time to implement meds check and the new services that she is proposing? Before being interrupted by one of her advisors that she was out of time, she did agree that the program was not fully utilized and that perhaps the compensation for medscheck consultations is insufficient.

Finally, she concluded with saying that she will not force this bill through until she fully understands its ramifications and that she is prepared to extend the period for negotiations if our coalition is prepared to negotiate."