During one of his television appearances, the prime minister spoke of a PDL "very close to pharmacists". A closeness that would have blocked liberalisations. But Mandelli is not going to play the part of the lobbyist and replies: "We have been asking for a real organic reform of the system for years but they have only given us extemporaneous interventions".
04 JAN – "Inside the PDL there is a lot of proximity to professional orders, such as pharmacies, and this has prevented us from going ahead with the liberalisations". These are the words pronounced yesterday in the Rai broadcast "Uno Mattina" by Mario Monti.
And the response from pharmacists was not long in coming. "Obviously we are not mistaken when we say that a political battle is taking place over the pharmaceutical service, the role of pharmacists and pharmacies which goes well beyond the organization of drug dispensing", commented Andrea Mandelli, president of the Federation of Pharmacists' Orders.
“Once again the profession is held up as an example of an obstacle to development and as a strong lobby of more or less hidden political sides, when instead we have been asking for a real organic reform of the system for years, also making proposals in this regard in all practicable fora. In reality, there is nothing hidden in our action. All the governments that have followed one another up to now have confronted us with a series of extemporaneous interventions on the territorial pharmaceutical service, not to mention interventions on health structures, where pharmacists also work, which not only and not so much affect the legitimate interests of the profession but aim to redesign healthcare as a whole in a private sense. Proof of this, for example, is the fact that we no longer even scruple to use the definition "welfare market" which was unthinkable until recently" continues Mandelli.
“Faced with this situation, the Federation, as is also its institutional duty, has pointed out what it believes are the consequences of the measures implemented: sometimes positive, sometimes, more often negative. All in the light of the sun and within the public dynamics of the political debate, so much so that we have repeatedly asked for a meeting with President Monti himself, a meeting that we are asking for again today, hoping for a different outcome. We have therefore never trusted in ad hoc measures as generous as they are buried in the folds d
