Senate Health Committee rejected sealing Pharmacy for the Pharmacist

Most objectionable was the mode in which the changes would be implemented. It was a "parliamentary throw-in" to the law on export insurance. As the chairwoman of the Senate Health Committee, Beata Małecka-Libera, stressed, such a mode for such important issues is unacceptable.

- The need for a broad discussion and changes in the pharmaceutical law. There was time to sit down together and see what is not working in this market. The essential content should be discussed in the circle of stakeholders and under the leadership of the Minister of Health. He is the one in charge and has oversight of what is happening in the market. If it's going badly, why has there been no interest in the topic until now and it comes to throwing in a parliamentary amendment," said Senator Beata Malecka-Libera.

The parliamentary amendment was intended to lead to a situation where it would no longer be possible for larger entities to buy up pharmacies and thus develop pharmacy chains. The proposed solutions have raised concerns among owners of large, but also smaller pharmacy chains. Doubts have been raised about whether it will be possible to sell businesses built up over many years, as well as whether it will be possible to inherit such businesses.

As Marek Tomków, vice president of the Supreme Pharmaceutical Council, stressed, the amendment is supported by the pharmacy self-government primarily because of its content, specifically that it solves the problem of so-called "poleing."

- Freedom of business can be restricted by law, and this is often the case with pharmacies, such as the reimbursement law, which imposed 4,000 rigid prices on drugs. The law should be equal for everyone. Someone who is not a pharmacist cannot open a pharmacy, but if he has enough money, he can buy a thousand of them, bypassing the law. Is this equality before the law? - Marek Tomkow asked.

- The two largest chains are 46 companies that were credited with money not from Polish banks, but from the British Virgin Islands. 17 of the companies' addresses are at a single address in Cyprus. We are dealing with the phenomenon of pillorying, i.e. a situation where an entrepreneur uses the name or company of an entrepreneur in order to hide the size of his own business," Marek Tomków pointed out.

In the end, members of the Senate Health Committee voted an amendment to the law under consideration that deletes the article on sealing the Pharmacy to Pharmacist rule in its entirety.