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Some Whitehorse pharmacies say they have been having trouble registering their pharmacists to administer flu vaccines, and it’s preventing some pharmacies from administering them.
One, Medicine Chest Pharmacy, isn’t offering the vaccine at all this year, said co-owner Jeff Spiers, and that’s one of the reasons.
Greg Oldridge, president of the Yukon Pharmacists Association, said he’s heard complaints from pharmacies around Whitehorse about difficulties receiving their vaccine endorsements, the certification required in the Yukon to administer flu vaccines.
The training should take about two or three weeks to complete, he said.
Oldridge said he has heard two different stories about efforts to get registered.
One larger chain, he said, had “really good experiences getting more people registered than most of the others.”
The owner had replaced eight pharmacists over the last year, had six pharmacists “up and going” with the vaccine program last fall, and this year, had two more registered in August, he said.
However, Oldridge said, several other chains, including Medicine Chest, have experienced issues with getting their staff certified.
Health department won’t respond until after election
Medicine Chest has been dealing with a back-and-forth with the Yukon government’s Health and Social Services department for the last five months, Spiers said.
“That person is still not registered despite them putting effort in to try to keep the process moving, like by contacting people every couple of weeks,” Oldridge said of the Medicine Chest situation.
The main issue, he said, has been getting through the required courses before applying for the endorsement.
CBC reached out to the Yukon Department of Health and Social Services to ask for a response to the allegations raised about the delay.
A spokesperson for the department declined to comment saying “The government of Yukon is currently in a caretaker period pending the swearing in of a new government. During this time, government departments limit public communications to essential operational updates or matters related to health and safety.”
The spokesperson said he would follow up once the new government has been sworn in.
A spokesperson for Yukon government’s Department of Community Services, the department in charge of providing the vaccine endorsement to pharmacists after they have completed the required coursework, said it “isn’t aware of any backlogged cases.”
“The way the process should work is if they have their appropriate coursework and they can prove they’ve taken it, they should get an endorsement within 10 days,” Kara Johancsik said.
“That’s our business standard … if anything’s missing from the requirements then it might take longer.”
While some pharmacies complain about the delays getting the vaccine endorsement, some are also complaining about the software that tracks patient immunization records.
The program, called Panorama, is too slow and can cause flu shot appointments to take longer than expected, said David Winger, a manager and pharmacist with Shoppers Drug Mart in Whitehorse.
Winger previously practiced in B.C. and said the province’s program, ImmsBC, is much more streamlined.
“In B.C., [if] somebody came in and they got [the] flu and COVID shot, I can have them in and out, like, in probably less than five minutes,” he said. “In the Yukon, it’s going to vary widely depending on the system, [and] how loosely it’s working because sometimes it just takes so long to load that I can’t give you a solid answer.”
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