Prescription for disaster: America's broken pharmacy system in revolt over burnout and errors [View all]

[Jilly_in_VA]

Emily Le Coz

Pharmacists with the nation’s largest retail pharmacy chain felt dangerously burned out.

It was August 2020. The pandemic was in full swing, straining an already weary workforce hit by a decade of relentless budget cuts and rising demands.

One by one, the pharmacists dialed into a weekly conference call with their boss. He could have empathized with them or addressed the reality of their pressure-cooker environment – one that breeds medication errors and creates missed opportunities to prevent potentially deadly mistakes.

Instead, CVS District Leader Khalil Haidar turned up the heat. He harped on his Texas-and-Louisiana-based team to hit corporate quotas: Sell more store memberships. Push for more prescription pickups. Vaccinate more people. He threatened discipline and staff cuts unless pharmacists convinced at least five customers that week to get a flu shot before flu season had even officially started.

“If you get your goal, nobody will come after you," Haidar said on the call, one of several recorded and shared with USA TODAY. "And many patients, they are ignorant. They don’t know what the flu is ... How are you going to convince them? How can you persuade them? That’s your job as a pharmacist.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2023/10/26/pharmacy-chains-dangerous-conditions-medication-errors/71153960007/

I quit Walgreens because they closed in solidarity with other strikers and I couldn't get my meds when I needed them. But I had to go to Walmart because Part D *sigh*