After brain surgery to remove a tumor, Robert Senter must take daily medication to prevent violent seizures. But it’s often hard to get his refills on time at the CVS pharmacy where he buys his medicine.
Senter, of Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, says there’s often a prescription backlog — an issue pharmacists say is caused by insufficient staffing and workers overburdened by unattainable performance metrics. Indeed, more than 2,000 U.S. pharmacists plan to walk off the job this week to pressure national drugstore chains to address poor working conditions, according to organizers.
Dubbed Pharmageddon, the walkouts follow similar actions last month by CVS pharmacists in Kansas City, Missouri, who stayed home from work in protest over unsafe working conditions. That led to the temporary closure of about 10 pharmacies in the Kansas City area, some of them in Target Corp. retail stores, CVS said at the time. CVS even dispatched Chief Pharmacy Officer Prem Shah to Kansas City to meet with the pharmacists, but employees say he didn’t adequately address their concerns and that the walkouts will continue.
“Patients need to be aware that pharmacy employees are fighting for their safety, but the corporations are being nothing but stumbling blocks to their well-being,” said Bled Tanoe, a former Walgreens pharmacist who has been helping to organize the walkouts, in a statement.
Pharmacists and technicians are protesting without the backing of unions to protect their jobs, which paints a picture of the gravity of the matter, Tanoe said.
CVS Health Corp. said the company was “committed to providing access to consistent, safe, high-quality health care to the patients and communities we serve and are engaging in a continuous two-way dialogue with our pharmacists to directly address any concerns they have,” according to spokesperson Amy Thibault.