The National Order of Pharmacists received 131 declarations of assaults in pharmacies in 2015. Violence by firearms and threats particularly escalated last year.
In France, problems of insecurity are more and more frequent in local shops. And pharmacists are unfortunately not spared. Verbal assaults, vandalism, physical assaults, armed robberies: acts of violence were numerous in 2015. The figures of the National Council of the Order of Pharmacists (CNOP) which present this Thursday its report attest to this. 2015 observatory of assaults suffered by these health professionals.
Since 2012, the CNOP follows, using the declaration sheets sent to it by community pharmacists, the evolution of attacks (physical, verbal, material damage, etc.) to which they are victims. “It is essential that pharmacists continue to report assaults. This allows us to establish a refined panorama of the situation and thus to propose adapted solutions in favor of the safety of the pharmaceutical practice ”, indicates Alain Marcillac, national safety referent of the National Order of pharmacists.
131 assault reports in 2015
Thus, the National Order of Pharmacists received 131 declarations in 2015 (compared to 152 in 2014). Among them, assaults with firearms represent 14% of declarations, which testifies to “the extreme violence sometimes suffered by dispensing pharmacists”, estimates the Order. Unfortunately, after stabilizing over the past three years, this figure is on the rise again (+ 3%).
As an explanation for this observation, the Order writes: “while the dispensary exercise is very largely characterized by dematerialized financial operation with small amounts of cash in hand, the reality remains relatively unknown by the aggressors”. “In a context where the search for cash is often the primary motivation for attacks on pharmacists, we see that those related to cash theft constitute a third of the reasons declared,” he adds.
Support increasingly under pressure
In addition, the CNOP also records an increase in attacks linked to difficulties relating to care, for example, the patient wishing a third-party payment, when he does not present a Vitale Card or compliant papers, or refusal to issue following non-compliant prescriptions. They are up 6% compared to 2014.
And the Order notes a strong upturn in the number of attacks with threats (+ 9% compared to 2014). But in total, verbal assaults still represent half of the statements (48%).
Regarding the typology of pharmacies concerned, the Observatory reveals that pharmacies in towns with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants account for 80% of reported attacks. Pharmacies in small shopping centers are thus becoming a “popular” target for attackers (+ 11% compared to 2014) despite high footfall and developed security systems. Nearly 8 out of 10 reporting pharmacies are in fact equipped with remote monitoring systems.
Rural communities not spared
But rural pharmacies are not spared either. The data collected by the security forces testify to a worrying increase in rural “raids”, carried out over a short period by the same group of individuals and at the level of one or more departmental districts. The reports mainly come from pharmacies located in Lorraine (13.8%), Ile-de-France (13.8%) and Burgundy (10.8%).
Finally, the consequences for professionals are worrying. The proportion of declared physical attacks that caused a work stoppage or hospitalization remains around 10%. The long-term psychological consequences are not evaluated. “They can appear later when there is no additional declaration to measure this phenomenon,” concludes the Order of Pharmacists.
Source: National Order of Pharmacists
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