Last year, 366 pharmacists said they had been attacked in their pharmacy, according to the latest report from the National Council of the Order of Pharmacists.
The figure is lower than that of the two previous years, marked by the Covid, but it continues to worry pharmacists: last year 366 of them were attacked in their pharmacy. Or one assault per day, according to the report of the National Council of the Order of Pharmacists, revealed by the JDD.
A figure which would be underestimated, because: “unfortunately, not all pharmacists declare the aggressions of which they are victims for lack of time, weariness or discouragement”, explains the president of the Order, Carine Wolf-Thal.
Main causes: drug shortages and fake prescriptions
Threats, verbal, threats, physical, insults, and sometimes threat with a firearm: why so much violence? Most often, the pharmacist is attacked by refusing to dispense a drug. This most often concerns painkillers that the pharmacist refuses to give to people visibly in the grip of an addiction and carrying false prescriptions, underlines the president of the Order.
But pharmacists have also been attacked multiple times, due to the shortage of drugs, such as cortisone, Doliprane, or even amoxicillin. This shortage would have generated anxieties among some patients who turned their anger on the pharmacist who was unable to deliver the drugs to them. Thus, as explained by the council of the order of pharmacists, “patients are angry against the system but they turn this anger against the pharmacist who is the first accessible person”.
To fight against the increase in violence, the Order of Pharmacists is calling for an increase in the penalties incurred by the aggressors. He also asks that complaints of assault can be registered directly at the pharmacy by the police.