Quantum Forest

In June I made some comments on how chemists (pharmacies) were stifling competition. That was a comment solely based on my experience dealing with them. Ten days ago Choice Magazine, owned by the Australian Consumers’ Association, published a report on the quality of advice and pricing provided by pharmacies.

Access to the report requires paid subscription (which I have), but the main findings were made public. The study included 87 seven pharmacies in Sydney, the Wollongong area and Adelaide, and found that:

• Advice given in 58 out of the 87 pharmacies we visited was rated ‘poor’ by our experts. The pharmacy profession needs to improve the quality of advice being given to consumers.
• Speaking to a pharmacist rather than a pharmacy assistant didn’t guarantee good advice.
• In a price spot-check of two of the products our researchers bought, the most expensive of each product in a supermarket was still cheaper than the cheapest pharmacy price for the same item.

The report also claimed that:

…there’s some evidence that restricting pharmacy ownership may be limiting competition and make prices for some medicines higher than they would otherwise be, and the results of our spot-check seem to support this.

Sadly, it seems that my experience with pharmacies was not an exception at all.

Filed in economics, politics