TORONTO - Ontario pharmacists asked the government Friday for at least $260 million a year in direct funding to drop their opposition to a provincial plan to eliminate $750 million a year in professional allowance fees paid to them by generic drug companies.
About 100 pharmacists wearing white lab coats rallied at the legislature Friday and delivered a petition with 500,000 signatures decrying what they said are the government's cuts to health care.
The pharmacists agree with the goal to lower the costs of generic drugs, and are willing to live without professional allowances if they get funding to compensate them, said Ben Shenouda of the Independent Pharmacists Association of Ontario.
"The submission we are putting to the government is talking about $260 million reinvested from the government in the pharmacies, and provides hundreds of millions in net savings to the government every year," said Shenouda.
"We are supporting the elimination of the professional allowance fees and the reduction in price of medications."
The money from the province would be used to pay for services pharmacists provide to patients, offsetting the professional allowance fees, and could also be used to increase the dispensing fee for each prescription to $11.25, said Shenouda.
Ontario consumers currently pay a $7 dispensing fee and the provincial government is offering to raise that by $1 in its plan to eliminate the professional allowance fees.
"The $8 is not even close to covering the actual costs," said Shenouda.
"Pharmacies still would feel a negative impact and lose money (under their alternative plan), but at least the level of support and quality of service we give to our patients will not be seriously impacted."
The Liberal government says Ontario pays much higher rates for generic drugs than many other jurisdictions and wants to eliminate the professional allowance fees -- which it likens to kickbacks -- to lower costs for prescription medications.
Health Minister Deb Matthews issued a statement late Friday calling the pharmacists' offer to drop the professional allowance fees "a positive step," but complained they are just asking consumers to pay to replace the fees.
"I am disappointed that on the surface it would appear the pharmacy associations' proposal would merely ask taxpayers to replace professional allowances with higher dispensing fees while maintaining their existing profit margins," said Matthews.
"It is refreshing that after spending millions to advertise the opposite, the pharmacy associations now agree we need to fully eliminate so-called professional allowances."
The Progressive Conservatives said the government should be willing to sit down and negotiate with the pharmacists to lower costs.
"The bottom line for us is Ontario families are strongly against front-line cuts to pharmacy care," said Opposition Leader Tim Hudak.
"They don't want to lose that relationship they have with their neighbourhood pharmacist or see some independent community pharmacies close down."
On Thursday, Shoppers Drug Mart said it will stop a protest against the elimination of professional allowances if the province raises dispensing fees and makes other concessions.
Shoppers said it costs $14 to fill a prescription -- double the current provincial payments -- and it also wants pharmacists to be able to negotiate drug prices with commercial partners. Currently prices are regulated by the government.
Shoppers has been leading a highly public fight against the Liberal government's proposed legislation, reducing some store hours, taking out newspaper ads and even refusing to fill prescriptions for brief periods to protest the government plan.
Earlier in the week, Loblaw Companies announced it saw a market opportunity in prescription drugs and plans to "aggressively" increase market share in its drug store business.
