Central Victorians call for extended pharmacy hours

Asked whether they thought Bendigo needed a 24-hour pharmacy, Bendigo Advertiser readers were overwhelmingly in favour of the idea of extended trading hours. 

“Absolutely, as when you live way out of town and have a late doctor’s appointment you need to make another trip to fill scripts,” Leanne Pickles said. 

She and her family live and work on a dairy farm, between Mitiamo and Pyramid Hill. 

A trip to the doctor, in Bendigo, takes about an hour each way. 

Milking hours mean Mrs Pickles and her husband are limited in the times they can get to an appointment.

“We can’t go between 3pm and 7pm,” she said. 

“If we can get in somewhere it’s usually after 7pm.”

While she said the family doctor was understanding about the need for a late night slot, pharmacies were not always open when they exited the clinic.

"Then I’ve got to go back the next day to get the script filled,” Mrs Pickles said. 

Milking hours don’t make it easy to make a trip to the nearest pharmacy in the morning, either. 

“We can’t get to town before 8.30am or 9am,” she said.

Mrs Pickles lives at least 40 minutes from the nearest pharmacy, or pharmacy depot service. 

Her options include Bendigo, Echuca and Cohuna. 

There hasn’t been a chemist open in her community for about 30 years, she said… at least, not one with a dispenser for prescription medication. 

“For things with a script it just makes it really hard for country people,” Mrs Pickles said. 

“Even if there is a pharmacy open until midnight… there only has to be one, just so there’s a chemist open.”

She and her husband keep essential medical supplies on the property, like painkillers and antihistamines, but there are some things Mrs Pickles said couldn’t be kept at the ready, like antibiotics. 

The older she and her husband get, the more cautious they are about their health.

“We don’t muck around now,” Mrs Pickles said. 

Extended pharmacy trading hours could help alleviate pressure on the emergency department, Bendigo Health chief executive officer John Mulder said. 

His comments come as the state government prepares to issue the next request for tenders to operate 24-hour pharmacies, as part of its $28.7 million Victorian Supercare Pharmacies Initiative.

“Anything that stops pressure on the emergency department is a good thing,” Mr Mulder said when asked about the initiative. 

The new hospital, which opened its doors to its first patients on Tuesday, has a large pharmacy.

However, it is not a retail pharmacy for the general public. 

Skip to about 13:34 to hear Bendigo Health CEO John Mulder talking about the 24-hour pharmacy proposal.

“If people need access to medication and they’ve got no other choice I can imagine why they would come to the new hospital and the emergency department,” Mr Mulder said. 

But he said there might be other alternatives better suited to their needs, such as out-of-hours GP services, home doctor GP services and late-night or 24-hour pharmacies. 

“All of those things are going to make a big difference,” Mr Mulder said. 

“The emergency department is for people who are seriously ill.

“If people have got alternatives, rather than coming into an emergency department and having to wait, a 24-hour retail pharmacy, late night pharmacy is going to be a big advantage to our community.”

Bendigo Health receives about 50,000 emergency attendances a year.