11mo ago

Loblaw’s health care empire is growing. But can it earn the trust of Canadian patients?

www.theglobeandmail.com

TLDR: No.

19 comments

“There’s a lack of access to physicians,” Shoppers president Jeff Leger says. “One in five Canadians don’t have access to a primary care provider. There’s lots of great solutions, but they take time to mature, and get more doctors. So people are turning to pharmacists and other professionals to help fill those gaps.”
The people who fixed the price of your bread are now practicing disaster capitalism on our healthcare.
Hundreds of Loblaw’s own pharmacists have told the country’s largest pharmacy regulator that they have felt pressure to put the bottom line ahead of patient care.
Shockingly, they aren't even doing a good job at it.
- It's all happening according to the conservative/neo-liberal plan.
How about we just tax millionaires & billionaires more and use that money to fund the public system?
Society used to work when marginal tax rates were much higher. It stopped working when we let the rich get richer at the expense of the rest of us.
- But tax cuts will allow them to hire more staff and it will all TRICKLE DOWN!
  /s
  
  What's funny about that is that hiring more staff was actually something they could do to avoid paying taxes because salaries are an expense. It reduced your taxable income, as did reinvesting in equipment.
  Cutting taxes meant that they could hire less and bank more.
  I know this, and you know this, but it's still frustrating.
Hell no - I stopped shopping at Loblaws since the boycott and I haven’t missed Shoppers Drug Mart one bit. I know that Shoppers is only one component of this health care empire but if it’s any indication, I won’t be needing anything else from Per Bank either. 🫡🫡🫡
- Same. Went to a local grocery store instead, it's great.
  
  Honestly the Boycott had me going to my local bakery, butcher and farmers market. In some ways it’s surprisingly cheaper and in some ways it’s a little (and I mean little) bit more expensive but knowing that my money is going to my local community / farmers is 100,000% worth it. Haven’t had to go back since.
  So I really feel you on that; nok er nok
Suck it, Loblaws.
Loblaw/Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacists work on quotas, and the pressure to dispense as quickly as possible causes them to miss obvious and serious drug interactions. The quota system for prescriptions is an actual pressing threat to patient safety.
In BC, if you take more than 3 prescription drugs, pharmacists can bill the province for a medication review (around $80 last time I checked). The medication review is supposed to be a minimum of 30 minutes, improve the patient's treatment plan, etc. SDM would literally turn this into a pure box-checking exercise to claim the $80 in 3 minutes or less.
Oh, and they charge for injecting a vaccine into you (a 3 minute activity and for most vaccines, something you could train a monkey to do). In comparison, independent pharmacists tend not to charge injection fees because they'd rather you come back as a repeat customer than treat you as a cash pig.
Trust? No. But all they actually need is resignation.
Fuuuuuck no.
Pricing fixing corporate trash.
But can it earn the trust of Canadian patients?
How can any Canadian patient trust a company who is STILL being caught for price fixing, gouging shoppers, and lying about why their grocery prices are high?
Why gain the trust of the people when you can just pay off the right politicians?
Non-paywall archive: https://archive.is/PJQPe
Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

19 comments