Pharmacists feel decidedly misunderstood. After the favorable opinion of the Competition Authority on a possible opening of the sale of unreimbursed drugs in supermarkets, the government is launching a concertation to sell pregnancy tests in supermarkets. Benoît Hamon, Minister of Consumer Affairs will issue a favorable opinion for an amendment to be voted authorizing the delivery of pregnancy and ovulation tests outside the usual pharmacy circuit. For the government, it is not a question of opposing pharmacies but of making these tests more accessible to the general public.
“We could significantly lower the prices” of these tests, if they were sold outside pharmacies, explained Benoît Hamon on RMC. “We want to act in all areas where we consider that there is a form of economic rent” which keeps “customers captive”, added the minister, defending greater “fluidity”.
Angry pharmacists
The minister wanted to reassure pharmacists by reminding them that there was no question of withdrawing the monopoly of specialized pharmacies on other drugs. A precision that has not calmed the anger of pharmacists. Philippe Gaertner, president of the Federation of Pharmaceutical Unions, interviewed on France Info, criticizes this proposal which shows that the government “has absolutely not understood what is happening in a pharmacy”.
The professional alludes to emergency situations, in the case of unprotected intercourse for example. A woman who buys a pregnancy test in the supermarket after unprotected sex, he believes, is at greater risk of becoming pregnant if she has not been advised by pharmacists on the procedure. morning after pill.
For the pharmacists’ union, the logic of consumption cannot supplant the logic of public health.
The standoff between the pharmacies and the government could become more important in the coming weeks. Because if the amendment passes, it is not excluded that other products such as cleaning fluids for lenses find a place in the supermarket.
