That the King Review is a front for something more sinister would be obvious to most pharmacists and the industry at large.
That it purports to be a review towards a positive future for community pharmacy is an insult to anyone’s intelligence.
i2P has already made the case for what the real agenda for Australian pharmacy is and the King Review was meant to ensure a smooth pathway towards the globalisation of Australian pharmacy and other elements of the health system as well.
i2P has also identified that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) as a product had reached its “use by” date and now requires a replacement.
Opportunities do exist to build on the skeleton of the PBS by creating a range of additional public/private partnerships, but no, Stephen King believes that government “owns” the existing PBS pharmacies and that pharmacists are simply agents of the federal Department of Health.
If that view was valid, where did the capital come from to build the community pharmacy network?
And despite its shortcomings, the network has proven to be of great social value and has made a solid contribution to public health in Australia with a high degree of professionalism.
The King Review has recently released its Interim Report for comment.
The lessons from history have taught us that eventually, all partnership ventures between the profession of Pharmacy and the Australian Government are seen in dollar terms only, with continual pressure applied to reduce payments by government, to pharmacy.
And always without taking the true costs and values involved to account, including the intangible communication costs to ensure patients actually receive, and are informed of any government scheme or enhancement involving a public benefit under the partnership agreement.
Commoditisation pressure and devaluation of any value provided by pharmacy in the support of any government health scheme is also accompanied by distorted or fake news media releases from government, that may be amplified by a corrupt “echo chamber” mainstream media.
It is a dismal performance by a government openly accepting large donations from sources with the agenda of “scientism” (definitely not science).
The most difficult of governments to deal with are always the Coalition governments.
That is their pharmacy legacy.
For the first time in over a decade, it is interesting to see the Pharmacy Guild of Australia (PGA) stirring, and building a defence for Australia Community Pharmacy against the globalist agenda of the King Review and the Australian Government.
Perhaps they are finally realising that the PBS has no real future and that the conflict of interest elements that have dictated policy within pharmacy ranks can now be left behind.
The challenge presented by the King Review is required to be countered by an aggressive, whole of pharmacy, political campaign.
So the opportunity for the PGA to enhance its leadership credentials is evident.
And if managed appropriately, a political campaign could become a unifying force for all of pharmacy – something that has been sadly lacking for a long time now.
So PGA, clean up your house and do what you were designed to do in a straightforward manner, and unify the troops.
Politics is the management of numbers and the more numbers that PGA can count as supporters will win the day.
A fragmented campaign, as any seasoned politician can tell you, will be a disastrous one.
A globalist agenda is the complete opposite as to what Community Pharmacy culture actually is.
Globalists would want a monopoly of unfettered ownership of a chain of retail pharmacies in the format of a Chemist Warehouse model.
Ownership would be centralised at one point on the globe, with policy generation occurring that is not necessarily driven through compatibility with local culture.
Location rules would be replaced with location according to population density, leaving a country like Australia with major health service deficiencies.
Pharmacist work opportunities would be sacrificed and replaced by “central fill” dispensaries servicing multiple pharmacies and no work satisfaction or skills acquisition.
The culture of Australian Community Pharmacy that has been driven by imagination, inspired through the stimulation provided by individual ownership, would be completely destroyed and replaced with an arid monoculture, a profit- only driven model that would replace pharmacist consultations to a centrally-controlled hologram, programmed with artificial intelligence – a system that could converse with a patient from any point on the globe.
Almost complete automation – and the elements are already in place in Australia timed with the introduction of Amazon, determined to become a global health monopoly.
The communications tool Alexa will be central to Amazon logistics and supply systems as well as its voice communications technology that will later be delivered with holographic images.
The deep pockets of Amazon will buy all the votes needed to alter legislation in its favour, and just watch the disintegration of our profession as advanced technology takes over.
Globalism is an already failed process because it has not and will never deliver on promises already made to various governments around the world.
Unravelling its tentacles will be difficult because it controls vast financial resources with different global corporations marching in step, one with the other.
It will require individuals to be prepared to fight – and that fight might even lead to open rebellion (civil war) in the long run.
The pathway that the King Review would like us all to take, but is being so opaque about in the drivel it is publishing, is the one leading to the doorway of Patient Benefit Management (PBM) companies that are little more than fronts for global drug companies.
If the Australian Government decides to go down this track, Australia’s health system will go into a steep decline from which it may not recover.
And the nightmare proposed has community pharmacy targeted as the “fall guy”.
If you think this is fantasy, I refer you to a well-known US pharmacist, Daniel Hussar, a health activist who has been warning about these practices for some years now.
He says:
“No other situations have had more of a destructive impact on community pharmacy practice and the provision of pharmacist services to patients than the unfair, oppressive, and non-negotiable terms of pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) prescription programs and their abysmal compensation for pharmacists.
The most severe consequences are experienced by independent pharmacists, but many chain pharmacies are also negatively affected.
For example, Rite Aid’s financial problems are such that its best hope is that it will be acquired by Walgreens.
Target, with its extensive and successful retail experience, could not find a way to be financially successful in operating its pharmacies, with the result that it sold them to CVS.”
Daniel has written three highly detailed articles about this problem and I urge every Australian pharmacist to read them and understand what lies ahead.
The links are found here:
http://pharmacistactivist.com/2017/May_2017.shtml
http://pharmacistactivist.com/2017/June_2017.shtml
http://pharmacistactivist.com/2017/July_2017.shtml
Against this background the ACCC has just announced that it has invested heavily in investigative skills to uncover cartel behaviour.
An extract from the ACCC media release states:
“For the first time in over 100 years in Australia, a cartelist was convicted, sentenced and fined for a breach of the criminal law yesterday.
Despite NYK pleading guilty and cooperating with the prosecution, the $25 million fine is the second largest ever imposed under the Competition and Consumer Act (2010).
Speaking at the Law Council of Australia Competition and Consumer Committee Workshop in Melbourne, Chairman Rod Sims said the verdict vindicates the increased dedicated resources the ACCC has allocated over the past three years to cartel investigations.
“We have built a substantial team of specialist criminal cartel investigators.
This has been a huge investment by the ACCC.
We now have a strong capacity to conduct careful and thorough criminal investigations,” Mr Sims said.”
Let us sincerely hope that the ACCC genuinely does have the resources to deal with cartel behaviour because the global pharmaceutical industry, both current and future activities, needs to be put under the microscope right now.
And the PGA as the body representing community pharmacy should leverage its current resources in the battle with the King Review (and his masters) and seek a formal liaison with the ACCC – it might just be needed.