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catherineyee November 11, 2023

As a pharmacist I’m so sorry you have encountered attitude from fellow pharmacists and pharmacy assistants when trying to fill your prescription. I’m devastated patients would feel any sense of shame for trying to access and effective medication that has been prescribed to them!

It’s so frustrating for us all (patients and health professionals) that these medications have gone back into short supply. (Unfortunately the Australian pharmaceutical market is so small compared to other countries and because of our PBS system companies often get paid less per medication as the pbs negotiations keeps the price down) often we miss out when other countries pay more (like in the USA a month of Ozempic is around $900 a month).

What we have implemented in our pharmacy is that everyone who enquires (I wish it went without saying, is treated with respect) gets added on our waitlist and if we receive any orders during the week we allocate what stock we receive for our patients with diabetes first (so that we are following the guidance from the TGA to prioritize these patients) then the remaining stock gets allocated in order of the waitlist for those prescribed the medication for weight management. It’s not an ideal system but it seems be to be working ok for our patients and our team. I hope you are able to build a relationship with a pharmacy team who will do the same for you.

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