PHARMACIST and PATIENT DISCUSSION GUIDE – Summer 2010
Top Line Messages
- Funding cuts to frontline healthcare will affect pharmacy services you have come to rely on
- We are changing the way we serve you, our patients
Discussion points
- Did you know that the Ontario government has cut funding to pharmacies and the services we provide?
- There is a large funding gap between what it costs to provide pharmacy care and what the government pays pharmacies
- It costs me approximately $14 to dispense a medicine. This covers pharmacist and staff wages, rent, utilities, and everything else
- But the Ontario Drug Benefit plan sets my dispensing fee at only $7 – and they don’t pay pharmacies anything at all for the rest of the services I provide to patients
- So under the Ontario drug plan, I’m actually losing money every time I dispense a medicine
- These funding cuts have hit my pharmacy hard. The government has downloaded a significant portion of pharmacy funding, and as a result we’ve been forced to re-assess how we do business. (give examples)
- Pharmacy and pharmacists are asking the government to reinvest the cuts into expanded pharmacy services which help improve the health of Ontarians, and often help save expensive and needless emergency room visits
- Your help in telling the government and our MPP that maintaining a viable community pharmacy is important to you, and that you support the reinvestment of funds saved into expanded pharmacy services would be appreciated
Overview of new regulations
Click here for an overview of the provincial regulations.
UPDATED: Key Facts
Please use these key facts when communicating with patients, media and the public. Click here to view pdf.
Frontline Healthcare MPP Pledge
Download the pledge here. Ask your MPP to sign and stand up for frontline healthcare. After they’ve signed the pledge, fax a copy to Dalton McGuinty at 416.325.3745 and to the CACDS offices at 416.226.9185.
Coalition Contact Database
Click here to register yourself in our database. This is necessary for Coalition tele-forums.
MPP Contact Information
Click here to look up your MPP.
Petitions
UPDATE: We are still collecting petitions!
Download and print here:
http://ontario.communitypharmacies.ca/site/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Petition.pdf
Original Petitions are to be sent to the OPA’s office at 375 University Avenue, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5G 2J5. Copies may be sent to your local MPP.
Note – Patients signing the petitions must write their entire address including postal code or the government will not count the signature.
Key Messages and Fact Sheet for Pharmacists
Please print the following documents to use in discussion with your patients, friends and family.
Newspaper Ad Templates
Available now for download are 3 newspaper ad templates should you wish to run them in your local newspaper.
Local media kit
For OPA members:
Login on the OPA website to access the files.
For non-OPA members ONLY:
Please send an email to campaign@ontariocommunitypharmacies.ca with subject line: “Request for local media kit”. Provide your name, pharmacy name and address and, preferably, a store email address.