Late fees hurting druggists

BARBADIANS MAY SOON find it difficult to get all of their medication from their favourite private pharmacy when they want it.

That’s because the Barbados Association of Pharmacy Owners (BAPO), which encompasses most of the 90-plus private pharmacies, is contemplating reducing the number of prescriptions they can fill per patient as Government continues to pay these businesses late.

BAPO president David Lewis said the late payment of pharmacies, which over the years was not timely, had now become chronic and erratic. That is, even when some pharmacies are paid late, others are not paid.

He revealed, for example, that pharmacies were paid for September in the second week of November. They have not been paid for October as yet, and that was due on November 28.

Please read the full story in today’s Midweek Nation, or in the eNATION edition.