Catalan chemists go on strike because of public payment delays

Barcelona (ACN).- Catalan chemists have decided to maintain Thursday’s strike “as a warning signal” for the current situation and the uncertainty of receiving future payments on time, explained the President of the Chemists’ Professional Association of Catalonia, Jordi de Dalmases. Catalan chemists decided to go on strike as a protest because they have not received the two last payments of the publicly funded drugs, representing €180 million. For public funded drugs, the chemists have to temporarily assume the price difference between what the citizens pay for drugs and their market price. After one month, once all the drugs sold have been accounted for, the chemists receive the drugs’ public share from the Catalan Government. According to the Catalan Executive, the payments were delayed as they depended on receiving the funds from the Spanish Government’s Liquidity Fund. The Spanish Government announced yesterday it was transferring €99 million to the Catalan Government to pay the chemists part of the money owed. However, on Wednesday, the chemists had not received this amount yet and have ratified tomorrow’s strike. On Thursday all chemists will be closed in Catalonia except 12% of them in order to guarantee the population’s assistance. 371 drug stores throughout the territory will be open from 9h to 22h.

The Catalan Government was supposed to pay the chemists on the 5^th of September and the 5^th of October the publicly funded share of the drugs purchased in July and August. However, the Catalan Government delayed the payments because of its liquidity problems as it cannot access international financial markets due to the unsustainable interest rates. In this situation, the Catalan Government uses the Spanish Government as a bank, asking for funds through the Liquidity Fund for the Autonomous Communities (FLA) announced last summer. The FLA was only put in place at the end of September and has yet not transferred all the funds requested by the Catalan Government. The first €471 million amount was transferred by the Spanish Government in early October to pay for debt maturities. The second amount (€ 568 million) arrived delayed, on the 9^th of October and it was used to pay the health, education and social centres receiving public funds. Chemists were not included. Now, the Spanish Government has just transferred €99 million to face part of the €180 million owed to the chemists.

“To raise a warning signal”

On Wednesday morning, the professional associations of chemists in Barcelona, Tarragona, Lleida and Girona met to decide whether to confirm Thursday’s strike. After these meetings, the Council grouping the four professional associations met and it has finally decided to go on strike. According to its President, Jordi de Dalmases, “the strike does not go against anyone”. Dalmases stated that their aim is to find a solution. However, going on strike “is the only way” they have left “to raise a warning signal for the availability of drugs”, he said.

The risk of running out of some specific drugs, if they do not receive public funds

In fact, chemists announced that some stores already had to close because of the financial crisis and that many need to ask for loans. Furthermore, some chemists can no longer pay for the drugs in advance if later they do not receive the public funds on time. They warned days ago that if they did not receive public funds, they could not buy drugs and there was the risk of running out of some specific drugs.