Bendigo Advertiser, December 30, 2023: Bendigo pharmacists are welcoming the news they will be able to provide customers with a range of vaccinations free of charge from January 1.
“For the patients, it’s brilliant,” White Hills Pharmacy owner Sanjay Jhaveri said. “I’m 100 per cent in favour of it.”
“For my clientele, it will be very significant,” Arnold St Pharmacy owner Chia Lim said. “I’m feeling positive about it, particularly for the flu shot.”
National Immunisation Program shots to be free from community pharmacies
The development comes as the result of a change of policy around the National Immunisation Program (NIP), which covers essential disease prevention for children, “catch-up” shots for those who miss out on them and ongoing inoculations for certain age and location groups, particularly those with vulnerabilities.
It will mean infants and children can receive ‘measles, mumps and rubella’ shots at their local community pharmacy free of charge.
Pregnant women will be eligible to receive whooping cough as well as flu injections, and over 65-year-olds and others considered “at risk” will be able to access shingles as well as flu shots for free from pharmacies.
Up until now eligible patients needed to pay an administration fee for these vaccinations if they chose to get them at a pharmacy.
Up to now flu shots cost $10 to $20
Around Bendigo the charge could range from $10 to $30, depending on the pharmacy and the vaccination type.
However, from 2024 the government will pay pharmacists $18.85 per vaccination so they can deliver them without charge.
The change, which was promoted by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, is aimed at reducing waiting times at doctors’ surgeries and hospital emergency departments, boosting immunisation rates and helping the public with health costs.
Arnold St Pharmacy’s Chia Lim said the development was a very positive one.
“The Pharmacy Guild fought hard to get this. I think they’ve done a great job,” she said.
While four or five years ago many of her customers would have gone to a bulk-billing doctor for a flu shot and received it for free, there were not many bulk-billing doctors left in Bendigo, she said.
Even where pharmacies kept their administration fee low for the injection, it had an impact on stretched budgets.
“If you are on a pension, it can be very hard,” Ms Lim said.
But pharmacists say reimbursement isn’t enough
Sanjay Jhaveri from White Hills Pharmacy agreed the removal of the fee was a great development.
However, he believed the government’s reimbursement wouldn’t actually cover the cost of delivering the vaccines.
“If we get a payment for the vaccination that doesn’t cover it, pharmacists will deprioritise doing them.”- Sanjay Jhaveri, White Hills Pharmacy owner
“If we get a payment for the vaccination that doesn’t cover it, pharmacists will deprioritise doing them,” he said.
Strathdale Pharmacy owner Gary Leung was also broadly positive but concerned about the labour involved.
“It’s a question of organising the manpower so we can do it smoothly,” he said.
The broadening of pharmacists’ scope of practice had been piloted in Queensland and found to be very “handy for the patient”, he said.
But customers would still need to make vaccination appointments ahead of time.
Given the busy time of year for pharmacists the measure wouldn’t be immediately introduced at Strathdale.
“I will get on board with it but I definitely can’t do it on January 1 – maybe a month or two later,” Mr Leung said.
Jenny Denton 
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