Welcome to this current edition of i2P (Information to Pharmacists) E-Magazine, dated Monday July 11 2016.
Well in the period since the last edition our national elections have been completed over a time period that certainly indicates that Australia should be moving towards an online voting system.
The archaic manual systems currently being utilised, caused unacceptable delays in business decisions and investment, until there was certainty as to who would be the legitimate leaders of Australia.
Malcolm Turnbull also had the painful experience of understanding and appreciating the value placed on public ownership of Medicare which will probably ensure a long period of time before that issue is tackled again.
So pharmacy can now return to the drawing board and begin to plan its future with the PGA publishing draft issues that will stimulate its thinking as it prepares for the 7CPA negotiations.
There is certainly not much left of the PBS to mull over and there is a good argument for a pharmacy services future to be eventually attached to the MBS scheme in a revised format.
Issues of unity still haunt the corridors of Australian Pharmacy leadership organisations and it is hoped that collaboration will genuinely occur as these divisions certainly allow other groups with negative agendas to deliberately foment dissent within our profession.
I refer particularly to the so-called Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM) who are anything but friendly, and carry an agenda that is anti-natural health.
Their recent foray involved a Victorian Review Committee looking at a range of natural modalities negatively.
That it has created draconian legislation for seventeen natural health modalities is a process that could eventually undermine confidence in all of health.
How is it moral or legal when an investigating committee can have at least six identifiable members of FSM with their open bias against natural medicine, being concealed under different organisational titles and conspiring to create negative and unnecessary legislation?
Ask yourself who wins from the above agenda and how are such campaigns funded?
There certainly seems to be a lot of people running around with their negative activities and that tends to need a lot of money to sustain?
Instead of banning any modality that seeks to reduce dependence on synthesised drugs why not encourage research expenditure to investigate properly why they work?
And why are there no steps being taken to investigate why mainstream media is not doing its job properly through not reporting on important issues, or only publishing a biased one-sided approach.
We must start getting responses to these questions because they create movements like BREXIT where people simply rise up and take back control of their country and their democratic rights.
Leadership that is “bendable” is the primary reason and in western economies it has become rampant.
Health information has become not trusted through mainstream media, and it becomes an event when a company such as Fox media actually does report on a natural medicine substance with good clinical evidence, in a positive way.
Be sure to read the “Recent News” column in this edition highlighting Vitamin C high dose therapy.
Our lead article in this edition is about setting direction without worrying too much about filling in a map (business plan), trying to document the full journey ahead.
You just need to get started on the journey, and that will generate insights for accurately filling in the segments for completing the map.
Read: Throw The Map Away And Just Use The Compass
BREXIT has caused consternation around the world because it was simply unanticipated, and it was an illustration as to how a majority of people are thinking, and resenting the fact that globalists are gradually removing democratic processes in their race to increase power and transfer wealth to an elite power group.
Global corporates are the main drivers and greed is the primary motive.
BREXIT is, as Donald Trump commented, represents the people taking back control of their own country.
While this process works mainly in the northern hemisphere we do see instances at work here in Australia.
For example, the recent process for how Victorian legislation was enacted against seventeen natural health modalities could be described as a BREXIT strategy developed by globalist interests, because it was more like a “black op” by an intelligence agency rather than a healthy democratic process.
We need to fully understand BREXIT so that power adjustments can be made.
Read: What Does BREXIT mean for Australia in a Health Context?
To their credit, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia has released an analysis of their view of the pharmacy world prior to undertaking 7CPA negotiations.
By putting this view up front allows for all pharmacists to make business plan corrections progressively and invest in innovations that would support the direction outlined by the PGA.
i2P has added some comment to the PGA analysis in support and has suggested that some sort of recording site could be established; maybe then all pharmacists could contribute to the discussion.
And possibly from that comment list a “white paper” could be published periodically.
Read: Four trends that will drive future health policy – PGA analysis
Free consultations have been the backbone of pharmacy health services, but with the contraction of profit on PBS items and a similar problem with OTC products, the “squeeze” on pharmacy returns has forced pharmacists to review their business models.
So the problem is to re-invent a model that has a stronger paid service component and to do it before the pharmacy business stability declines to an unmanageable level.
To some this has meant cutting back severely on time allocated to free consultations – and the general public has noticed.
i2P recommends that free consultations should continue at a level to service demand and only gradually reduce as a new paid model is introduced.
Even then a level of free service will still be required.
Read: The Value Of Free Pharmacy Consultations
It has often been a concern to hear that women continue to be discriminated within the work force and to understand all the reasons behind that discrimination.
Recently, a study was published that concluded one level of discrimination was caused by women discriminating against other women.
This intriguing study should be of interest to female pharmacy staff given that they form the largest component of a pharmacy’s workforce.
Read: Mean girls who impede the success of other women
A health environment should be a sympathetic environment and be helpful and even include a level of advocacy on behalf of the patient.
It can also have an element of “paying it forward” within the culture, and patient’s do form very strong bonds when the right kind of environment is developed.
Read: Killing it with kindness
In this edition we had an overflow of news items that have been published on one page under the title of “recent news items”.
They are all worth having a look at.
Read: Recent News Items 1. Be Part of Brain Health 2. Vac Truth – Hep B – Lack of Commonsense & Science 3. ASMI Conference – Healthcare Consumers 4. OHMS – High Dose Vit C
And we finish this edition with some media releases from some pharmacy leadership organisations.
Read:
PSA – PSA Media Releases – 1. Pharmacy Trial Program PSA16 2. New RACGP President welcomed 3. Health Destination Pharmacies Achieving Success
We hope you enjoy our current i2P offering and if you are moved, please comment in the panel provided below each article.
Neil Johnston
Editor, i2P E-Magazine
Monday 11 July 2016