The Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa (PSSA) will appeal last week’s dismissal of its court challenge to new medicine pricing regulations, the society said on Tuesday.
”The society will exhaust all avenues to ensure the survival of pharmaceutical service delivery in South Africa,” a statement read.
The PSSA was concerned about reports of pharmacies reducing staff and scaling down their services to keep their businesses viable, and it had received reports of closures.
Last week the PSSA, New Clicks and six other parties lost their court challenge against the regulations on a split judgement.
Meanwhile, a pharmacist told Sapa that while the regulations were suspended for the court case, they had been ”carrying on as normal” making their profit through markups.
When asked why they were not introducing the regulatory single exit price and dispensing fee limits the pharmacist said: ”Nobody can tell us how to run our business.”
However, she said the computers had been reprogrammed to charge according to the new regulations, which cap dispensing fees at R26, and they would start implementing the regulations ”if the computer worked” on September 1. – Sapa