Steve Anthony: True Canadian Pharmacy

When the blockbuster heart pill Norvasc lost its patent protection earlier this year, generic manufacturers couldn’t wait to get into the lucrative market for Canada’s third top-selling prescription drug, predicting they could save patients $180-million a year with their cheaper copies.
But the Saskatchewan government has just awarded its first contract for a generic version of the medicine to a generic branch of Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant !–more– that makes Norvasc itself, feeding concerns that such tendering systems will become the norm and inadvertently leave Canadians paying much more for prescription drugs.
Pfizer lost a drawn-out court battle recently to try to keep its patent-protection in force longer and delay any generic competition for another year.
Like other brand-name companies, though, the world’s largest pharma firm sometimes enters the generic market when its drugs go off patent, and its GenMed division offered Saskatchewan’s drug plan the lowest price among the eight competitors that started selling copies of Norvasc when the patent expired last week.

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The union must give DynaLIFEdx 72 hours notice within the next 120 days before going on strike. Hospital labs in Edmonton would not be affected by a strike, as those workers are employed by Alberta Health Services or Covenant Health, Ballermann said. The company also operates the labs in Fort McMurray, Fort Vermillion and High Level hospitals. Family physicians refer their patients to these labs for blood and urine tests. Laboratory workers !–more– at DynaLIFEdx in northern Alberta have voted in favour of going on strike, the Health Sciences Association of Alberta announced Friday. DynaLIFEdx operates 36 labs in northern Alberta with the majority in Edmonton. The hourly rates are reasonably comparable but lower generally than in the rest of the province for lab workers, said union president Elisabeth Ballermann. In a news release last month, DynaLIFEdx said it believes its offer of an average 20 per cent pay raise over two years is reasonable. The union believes the offer still makes compensation lower than the Alberta industry standard. Nearly 75 per cent of the people who cast a ballot voted in favour of going on strike, the union said, adding that 700 of the 912 eligible workers took part in the strike vote. But there are additional things such as benefit payments and other allowances that are significantly lacking, bringing the total compensation — quite significantly, 15 to 17 per cent — lower than other lab workers. The lab technicians and assistants want pay levels in line with workers in southern Alberta.

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Hundreds of pharmacies outside the capital observed a four-hour work stoppage on Sunday to protest a sales tax on pharmaceuticals, despite calls by the Jordan Pharmacists Association (JPhA) to call off the strike.
#8220;All#8221; pharmacies in Mafraq, Ajloun, Karak and Salt decided to ignore the JPhA council and shut their doors from 8:00am until noon, according to association activists.
Moreover, around 90 per cent of pharmacies in Zarqa, Jerash !–more– and Madaba also joined the work stoppage, according to Malik Saad Maaitah, an activist from the JPhA#8217;s Zarqa branch.
On Saturday, JPhA President Taher Shakhshir issued a statement calling on all pharmacies to refrain from closing their doors on the grounds that an agreement with the government over the controversial law was imminent.
But the JPhA council decision did not sit well with the leaders of some JPhA branches, who decided to act on their own, according to Maaitah.

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“Eastern Health will close 11 of the 19 operating rooms in St. The union had wanted its members to boycott assigned overtime. John’s hospitals, and dozens of day surgeries are being cancelled. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to administer health-care services after being on your feet that long,” Jones said outside the house, “to be at somebody’s bedside, knowing that their life probably depends upon the decisions that you were going (more…)

Eastern Health tried to recruit 22 nurses last month and the union says no one applied. He said those positions must be filled to ensure people in every part of the province receive high-quality medical care. The Newfoundland and Labrador Nurses’ Union has been trying for months to hammer out a deal for its 5,000 nurses and has put the province’s latest offer — which the government calls its final offer — to a vote. The province’s four health (more…)

Pharmacists in privately owned drugstores in Egypt went on strike Monday to protest efforts by authorities to enforce a new tax law, their union said.
The law, adopted in 2005, requires pharmacists to use a new bookkeeping method that includes all merchandise sold in drugstores — not just medicines — in their tax returns. Pharmacies in Egypt sell common toiletries and hair care products as well as pharmaceuticals.
Pharmacists argue (more…)

It’s a bit late, but here’s an update on the Egyptian pharmacist strike…
In a sudden move on Tuesday evening, Egyptian pharmacists decided to suspend their strike during negotiations with the government aimed at reaching a compromise on a new taxation law.
“We received strong promises from top officials that the problem will be solved,” Mahmoud Abdel Maqsoud, secretary-general of the pharmacists’ syndicates told The Times on (more…)

The New Brunswick government and the province’s 5,500 nurses have reached a tentative deal, avoiding a possible provincewide strike.
Marilyn Quinn, president of the New Brunswick Nurses Union, said the tentative agreement was struck at 1 a.m. Monday.
The two sides have agreed to withhold specifics of the new contract until a ratification vote is completed, which is expected in the next few weeks.
Quinn said both sides spent about 40 hours negotiating (more…)

A provincewide nurses strike over Christmas is being ruled out as talks between the provincial government and New Brunswick Nurses Union are scheduled to resume this week.
The two sides will be joined at the negotiating table by John McEvoy, a University of New Brunswick law professor, who will act as a special mediator.
Last Thursday, the nurses voted 94 per cent in favour of strike action and were in a position to walk off the job as early as (more…)

A confrontation between the Newfoundland and Labrador government and more than 5,000 nurses heated up Friday with a unanimous call for a strike vote starting in January.
“The system is straining under pressure,” president Debbie Forward told delegates to the Newfoundland and Labrador Nurses’ Union convention in Corner Brook.
She cited examples where hospitals have had no choice but to cancel or scale back services, largely because of chronic shortages (more…)