Pharmacists have been subject to abusive behaviour from customers as they deal with increased workloads due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Launceston Health Hub Capital Chemist pharmacist Christine White, was not surprised by the results of a survey which found almost half of pharmacists were considering leaving the industry.
Coronavirus: All the latest updates on COVID-19 for Tasmania
The survey was conducted by Professional Pharmacists Australia and polled 640 pharmacists around the country.
Ms White said pharmacists were dealing with an increased workload and poor customer behaviour.
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"The shop might appear like there are not many people there but we are doing lots of things behind the scenes, like answering the phone calls, taking phone orders and answering queries online or on the phone that we haven't had to do in the past," she said.
"I have had some quite aggressive people because we couldn't supply what they wanted or we said there was restrictions on things which they haven't had to deal with before."
In one particularly confronting situation Ms White said a customer headbutted one of the plastic screens they had installed to help protect staff.
She said sometimes it felt like people forgot pharmacists were front line workers.
"Everyone thinks about the nurses and the doctors, and they do do a great job, but people don't always think about the pharmacists," Ms White said.
Tasmanian president of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia John Dowling said workload increases were common across the industry.
He said stress levels were up because pharmacies were changing their entire workflow to meet the changing circumstances.
"A lot of prescriptions are being faxed or emailed and sent through as images, they have to be reconciled and it just causes big disruptions," Mr Dowling said.
"There have been instances of abuse against pharmacists and their staff.
"All those occurrences can be very stressful for staff and certainly pharmacists are under the pump."
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