Some pharmacies charging fee for use of waiting room

Chamber of Pharmacists president Mary Ann Sant Fournier said yesterday it was not illegal for pharmacy owners to charge patients for using their premises as a waiting room when visiting a doctor at a pharmacy clinic.

Irate patients complained to The Times that they have been charged hefty fees to wait to see the doctor in certain pharmacies. Some said they had even been charged Lm5 because it was after the pharmacy's normal closing time.

The issue of charging fees for using pharmacies as waiting rooms is long-standing.

Ms Sant Fournier said that from the entrepreneurial point of view, it was acceptable for pharmacy owners, who were not necessarily pharmacists, to want a return on their investment for upgrading their premises.

However, she recommended that pharmacies should find another means to recoup their investments and costs.

Fees should be associated with a pharmacist's professional delivery of health services, rather than with sitting in a waiting room, which was not a professional service, she said.

"As a professional body, the chamber would like to change the public's perception. Payment should be connected to a professional service.

"The discussion on fees paid in pharmacies should centre around a pharmacist's professional service to patients."

Ms Sant Fournier said that "while the chamber takes into account the fact that proprietors have to recoup their investment, it felt a different arrangement should be found between doctors and owners.

"They should figure out another means because it does not look professional - even though the owners are not necessarily pharmacists and the action is not illegal."

No rules and regulations governed the question of fees, Ms Sant Fournier said, but patients should be made aware that they are going to be charged in certain pharmacies and there should be signs informing them.

"It is an accepted rule that consumers are informed of charges they are going to incur to enable them to decide if they want the services, or not."

Pharmacies charging a clinic fee should have notices put up, although it was not the chamber's competence to enforce this. The chamber did not go into the issue of by who and how the situation was regulated.

The chamber had issued guidelines on how legitimate costs could be recouped in another way, she said. It is common for pharmacies in Malta to offer an extended service by having a clinic on the premises, creating a form of well-being centre and a one-stop shop - a system that was even being emulated in the UK.

Ms Sant Fournier said patients were prepared to pay if they used private hospitals or clinics. The point was to avoid profiteering. However, the chamber had not received any reports of fees amounting to Lm5, she said.