Hospital Pharmacists Shortage Getting Worse

The shortage of hospital pharmacists is getting worse:   The association representing the province's 12-hundred-and-50 hospital-pharmacists estimates the system needs 220 more of them. 

The head of the Association of Hospital Pharmacists, Linda Vaillant, worries that the shortage persists, while hospital needs are growing due to the aging of the population and the requirements of increasingly complex treatments.

She says the shortage isn't just affecting institutions in Quebec's outlying regions, it's causing problems in urban areas as well.

Vaillant blames the 30-percent wage-gap between hospital pharmacists and their private-practice counterparts.  Those who work in hospitals earn 33-dollars an hour compared to 43-dollars an hour for those in the private-sector.

The hospital-pharmacists' contract expires in 2010 along with that of other public-sector workers, but the government has agreed to review their situation mid-contract.