Pharmacists urged to resume services as dispute nears end

AFTER 11 days of sick patients making huge round trips just to get their medicine from temporary dispensing units, the pharmacists’ dispute finally appeared to be close to an end last night.

At an emergency meeting called by the Irish Pharmacists’ Union (IPU), it asked its members to resume normal services immediately. The IPU said it had put the request to pharmacists “in the interests of patient safety, in order to prevent a recurrence of the chaotic scenes of yesterday and last week”.

The dispute centred on a reduction in payments to those pharmacists who dispense prescriptions under the state drug schemes.