Pharmacies protest medicine price changes with one-day closure

As part of the protests, organized by the Turkish Pharmacists Union (TEB), TEB head Erdoğan Çolak and a group of pharmacists closed the shutters of the Natura pharmacy in Ankara’s Çukurambar district, starting off the one-day closure. “We call it a one-day closure protest for the solution of our problems. A TEB congress will gather on Dec. 11, 12 and 13. This congress will make radical decisions if the government does not move toward a solution,” Çolak said.

While stressing that about 7,000 pharmacies have closed as a result of the decision on medicine prices, he said they cannot afford the closure of such a large number of pharmacies as a pharmacists’ organization. Çolak said the state has not yet supported them in meeting their losses but rather had supported pharmaceutical companies.

The decision to decrease the prices of 2,750 medicines went into effect on Dec. 4, which leaves many pharmacies strapped for cash as medicines that have already been bought at higher prices from pharmaceutical companies will need to be sold for the new lower price -- sometimes less than half the previous price.

Çolak further said that they had not victimized patients as they had put additional pharmacies on duty to be open on the day of the protest.

In a number of pharmacies across Turkey, various placards were displayed reading “We would close one by one eventually, now we are closed altogether,” “We are closed today, we do not know about tomorrow” and “As pharmacists, we will not let our labor, our employees livelihoods, the future of our children and the health of our patients be played with.”

Over 7,000 pharmacies closed their doors in protest of a government regulation to cut the prices of 2,750 medicines across the country. The government decision came into effect yesterday.

Although the number of pharmacies listed to stay open was increased on the day of protest, patients with prescriptions in their hands did not seem happy with the protest. Long queues in front of pharmacies were observed, especially in big cities. İstanbul Chamber of Pharmacists official Şehnaz Efeoğlu noted that about 300 pharmacies were open in İstanbul on Friday.

In addition, a number of pharmacists chose not to participate in the protest, opening their pharmacies on Friday.

“I understand the problems of my colleagues but this protest is wrong,” pharmacist Muharrem Selamoğlu, who is also the Niğde deputy for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Opening his pharmacy in Ankara on Friday, Selamoğlu said it is not fair to prevent patients from accessing medicine at a time when pandemic diseases are widely seen. “We, as a government, try to present the best service to the citizens. It is wrong to carry out a boycott against the state. The state bargained with the medicine companies, which promised to compensate the financial losses of the pharmacies. If they do not compensate for our losses, we have to conduct a boycott against them. I am against a boycott which punishes citizens and the government,” he explained, adding his colleagues are likely to react against him for opening the pharmacy.

A pharmacist from İzmir, Bülent Delican, said he thinks the solution must be found in discussions instead of in a protest and he opened his pharmacy in order not to victimize patients. “I did not participate in the protest. Everybody is free to decide. I used my democratic right. I don’t think it is right to close pharmacies,” Delican said, stressing that medicine companies must shoulder the biggest responsibility about the decision to lower medicine prices, not pharmacies.

‘The protest is against human rights’

Stating that he did not find the protest to be right, Consumers Union Vice President Mustafa Dinç claimed that the protest is against both consumers’ and human rights. Arguing that the protest will bring pharmacists face-to-face with patients, Dinç said the protest violates the right of protecting one’s health.

While recalling Labor and Social Security Minister Ömer Dinçer’s statement on Thursday that according to an agreement the ministry signed with representatives of medicine companies, these companies must compensate for the pharmacies’ financial losses -- which are estimated to be TL 800 million, Dinçer alleged that pharmacists organized the protest because they will lose profits and added that the decrease in prices will benefit the entire country.