Navigation

Pharmacy Tech Jobs

WINNIPEG, Canada -- How did Manitoba, one of Canada's smaller provinces, become a hotbed for Internet pharmacy? Currently, about half of the estimated 6,000 pharmacy jobs across all of Canada are located within its boundaries.

Long before reimportation became a U.S. political hot button, a pharmacist named Andrew Strempler, now chief executive officer of RxNorth.com, started experimenting online with keyword searches for over-the-counter products. After putting Nicorette gum up for bid on e-Bay, he became Canada's largest supplier of the smoking-cessation aid. Later, he lobbied the province of Manitoba to sell prescription drugs over the Internet.

According to David MacKay, executive director of the Canadian International Pharmacy Association, about 12 percent to 14 percent of Manitoba pharmacists today are employed in the mail order sector. Mail order pharmacists make about $100,000 per year, compared with between $80,000 to $85,000 for a pharmacist working in Canada's chain drug stores.

The biggest question looming in the industry now is what will happen if suddenly up to 6,000 people lose their high-paying Internet pharmacy jobs as a result of a decision by federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh to stop the practice.

Andy Troszok, president of CIPA and also president of mail order-based Extended Care Pharmacy, employs 25 people in his 5,000-sctuare-foot facility, which includes a call center, a data center, a billing department, a pharmacy tech department, a dispensary, a shipping department and a cyber clinic providing professional services, including education and counseling. Four of Troszok's 25 employees are pharmacists. He said he isn't worried about his pharmacists finding a job should the health minister cut off Extended Care's ability to dispense drugs from Canada. The pharmacist shortage, said Troszok, means jobs are available in hospital settings and community pharmacy, in addition to other industry and research positions.

Troszok also said that mail order pharmacy did not create Canada's current pharmacist shortage.

"I do not see anyone in Manitoba running down the street holding a prescription in their hand and screaming, 'I can't find a pharmacy to fill my prescription.' The reality is there are pharmacies popping up on every corner. Major chains can't keep up with their expansion. There are more and more pharmacies per capita than there were 10 years ago. So it's not that the customer cannot find a pharmacy to fill the prescription, it's that the pharmacy industry has created what I believe is an unrealistic demand for pharmacists," said Troszok.

COPYRIGHT 2005 Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group