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The approved amendments stipulate that pharmacist assistants will be able to work independently in pharmacies for another two and a half years, until July 2023.
Valstiečiai offered pharmacists to work without pharmacists until July 2021.
R. Karbauskis says that only people with higher university education and the qualification of a pharmacist can provide information and advice on drugs in pharmacies, as provided by the directive of the European Union.
According to the leader of the “peasants”, Lithuania had to ensure this much earlier. Former Health Minister MP Aurelijus Veryga also criticized Seimas’s decision on Tuesday.
“In 2007, the rules of the EU directive regulating the qualification of a pharmacist had to become part of the Lithuanian national legislation, but they were not transposed into national legislation until 2012, postponing their entry into force until 2016. Then it did not come into force again, it was moved to January 1, 2021 and now we see an attempt to postpone it until 2023, “said R. Karbauskis in the report.
“The interest is very clear – it is simply not worth it for large pharmacy chains to hire pharmacists with a college degree, because they may pay less for pharmacy assistants (pharmacists) who have graduated from universities,” he said.
The leader of “Valstiečių” claims that the Lithuanian Universities of Health Sciences and Vilnius (LSMU and VU) had submitted a proposal to the Seimas Health Affairs Committee to postpone the entry into force of the law for six months, stating that next summer a new generation of pharmacists disagreed.
According to R. Karbauskis, if the modifications to the Pharmacy Law come into force, the “peasants” will go to the European Commission to assess whether the EU law has been violated.
The Seimas, which foresees that pharmacist assistants could work independently in pharmacies until July 2023, made that decision to allow time to plan for the state need for pharmacists and pharmacists.
Parliament was in a hurry to pass the amendments; otherwise, pharmacists would no longer be able to work without pharmacists’ supervision as of January next year.
In 2012, the Seimas adopted a decision to strengthen the activities of pharmacies. Initially, it was anticipated that starting in 2016, pharmacists supervised by at least one pharmacist would have to work during pharmacies’ working hours, then the deadline was postponed until 2021.
Almost 10 years ago, the decision was made to prevent pharmacists from working in pharmacies without constant supervision of a pharmacist in order to harmonize the current procedure in Lithuania with the directive of the European Union.
Pharmacies now employ 898 pharmacists, and a total of 1,234 pharmacists are on the pharmacy assistant list.
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