Government pharmacists need salary boost to condense 
drug wait times says Opposition

Liberal Opposition Leader and MHA for the District of Cartwright L’Anse au Clair, Yvonne Jones, says government pharmacists need a salary boost to help address the staff shortage that is compromising the special authorization process under the Newfoundland and Labrador Prescription Drug Program(NLPDP). 

Special authorization for certain drugs is normally reviewed by NLPDP within a 10 day period by 5-6 pharmacists.   In recent months, the wait times for this review process are taking close to 5 weeks due to a shortage of government pharmacists.

“Our information shows that the primary reason for this shortage is due to the fact that pharmacists in government make $20,000- $30,000 less than those working in the private sector,” says Jones.  “This is a fairly significant difference and one that needs to be first acknowledged by government and then addressed in a direct manner.”

The Opposition Leader points out that job advertisements to fill the current vacant positions were issued over a year ago, with no applicants either on a full-time or a part-time basis. “This should be telling government officials that something is clearly not working and they need to step up their recruitment incentives.  Offering overtime benefits is not getting to the crux of the problem of staff shortage, nor is it enabling reviews to be done on a timely basis.