In October 2023 many of our hospital pharmacist members were affected by the impasse declared in collective bargaining between AAHP and the provincial government. In order to advocate for the importance of hospital pharmacists, and to stress the need for a collective agreement that supports adequate recruitment and retention of hospital pharmacists, CSHP-NL took the following actions:
-Public social media post by CSHP NL in support of AAHP
-Letter sent from CSHP to the following: Tom Osborne (Minister of Health and Community Services), Siobhan Coady (Minister of Finance), Paul Dinn (Health critic), Jim Dinn (Leader of the NDP), Tony Wakeham (Leader of the official opposition)
In October, 2022, CSHP-NL Branch sent a letter to the NL Minister of Health and Community Services, Tom Osborne. In this letter, we highlighted the importance and urgency of modifying the Pharmacy Act to allow pharmacists licensed in our province to practice to their full scope of practice and prescribe schedule I drugs and order laboratory tests. In addition, we explained and provided examples of how these changes will have a significant impact on pharmacists’ ability to manage patient care, save costs, and contribute to improved patient outcomes in both hospital and community settings. We also referenced our previous Health Accord submission in order to ensure that the new Health Minister was aware of the work that we had previously done and submitted. See below.
On July 16, 2021 CSHP-NL branch presented live to the Health Accord NL Task Force to advocate for hospital pharmacists working to full scope, and being integrated into more interdisciplinary teams! On July 22, 2021, we followed our presentation with a longer, more in-depth written submission. This document provided a more detailed explanation of the compelling evidence that proves the benefits of having hospital pharmacists working in team-based care.
The executive summary provides a brief overview of our 4 main recommendations.
1. NL needs more pharmacists working in both inpatient and outpatient team based care. This has been shown to improve outcomes and reduce healthcare costs.
2. Both pharmacists and technicians need to be working to full scope. We have advocated for expanded pharmacist prescribing (collaborative or independent), and for technicians to take over the technical and administrative functions of the pharmacy that is now within their scope and that in many cases pharmacists are still tied up with doing
3. Pharmacy-led medication reconciliation improves med safety at transitions of care and improves patient outcomes. This could be increased by initiating technician-collected BPMH in emergency departments, and by incorporating more pharmacists into inpatient team-based care
4. Digital technology improvements such as prescription scanning, CMAR/CPOE, and full implementation of Pyxis would help improve patient safety and save time to allow existing pharmacy staff to work to full scope
We encourage all our members to stay informed by following the Health Accord on social media, or signing up for their email mailing list: