Pharmacists are an integral part of our health care system. It is difficult to even quantify their contribution. They are nearly instantly available for consultation on everything from drug interactions to the best over-the-counter medications for any number of maladies that plague us. The burden they carry relieves much of what could be placed on the shoulders of doctors who are already tightly booked and working hard.

There has never been a compensation model in Alberta for pharmacists to get paid for these services. Instead they used to garner their profits via generic drug companies who offered allowances to keep their wares on the shelf. Certainly that was not the perfect model for recompense, and so the Alberta government, like many in Canada, laid a limit on how much generic drug companies could charge above their cost. This meant they could no longer pay these allowances, but the government has stated it will work out a new compensation plan for pharmacies which allows them to get paid for the work they actually do.

That all sounds good, but the problem is the cuts have come long before the compensation model has been put into place, putting an unnecessary strain on pharmacies, particularly independent and rural pharmacies.

July 1 was the deadline for this model to be announced, but that date has now been moved to April 1, 2011. No one yet knows exactly what this model will look like, how it will be implemented on a store-by-store basis or whether or not it will still leave a funding gap for pharmacies. Instead these pharmacies are left in limbo as the big thinkers talk and talk and then do a little more talking just before convening a meeting that will be a prequel to a discussion where, perhaps, they will strike a committee.

Although it is highly likely that most people get into politics in order to better their communities, the province and the country as a whole, one sometimes has to wonder if the rarefied air in the legislative buildings should be a little more oxygen rich.

No business can continue on promises. Rural communities need their pharmacies, and according to icareaboutmypharmacist.com, more than 10,000 Albertans have made that clear by signing petitions stating the same. Currently there are about 1,500 signatures from Bow Island and area residents alone on the petition at Apple Drugs. Residents care about keeping these vital places open for business. And about 70 other communities in Alberta are in the same boat as Bow Island, with one pharmacy to aid them locally.

Since other provinces have already taken the step Alberta has in limiting what generic companies can charge for drugs, it seems that they must also have compensation models in place for their pharmacies. Can we not take a page out of these books and see what system works the best? A study of these other provinces methods of compensation could have been completed long before APS-Phase 2 was implemented. Instead Alberta ran a pilot project for one year involving 17,000 Albertans, 107 pharmacies and 190 pharmacists, only to learn that they needed more information before figuring out how to properly compensate pharmacists.

One has to wonder how much that pilot project cost, how much the independent evaluation of that pilot project cost and how much more information or evidence is needed before concrete steps can be taken that will make a real difference to our pharmacies.

During the same time period, the government has talked about the difficulties it has had working through the economic downturn, putting a stop to promised infrastructure building projects as it tightened its coffers. Yet they are asking pharmacies, which have been doing business under the same economic strain, to wait at least 18 months between cuts and a compensation model.

Something concrete needs to be done much sooner than that.