SALT LAKE CITY — Kevin Witzenman is the owner of the local pharmacy ‘Cottonwood Compounding.’ He sympathizes with the pharmacists at Walgreens, CVS and other large drugstore chains who are on strike this week.
“Good for them,” he said. “I worked at Walgreens for six months, right when I got out of school, and it didn't instill a lot of confidence when I first started. You're overworked, underpaid, understaffed. And you're filling hundreds and hundreds of prescriptions a day just as fast as you can do them. And, you know, you're just so worried about making an error.”
Pharmacists are protesting difficult working conditions and for the drugstore companies to give employees the ability to do their jobs safely.
“Hopefully, the patients look around for other options because there's a lot of options out there,” said Witzenman. “We're just not as well known. You can get your medications here or any other independent pharmacy all over the place and they usually save you money anyway.”
Walgreens sent the following statement to FOX 13:
We recognize the incredible work our pharmacists do every day, especially this time of year when there is increased demand for their services across communities. Our leaders are in our pharmacies regularly, listening to concerns and frustrations and responding to feedback.
We have taken steps over the last two years to improve pharmacists’ experience, advance the profession and enable them to provide the high value care they were trained to do.
Nearly all of our 24,000 pharmacists continue to serve their customers and communities this week, and we thank them for it. We have had no disruptions this week to any of our pharmacies in the Salt Lake City area.
CVS sent the following statement to FOX 13 News:
We’re serving patients across our footprint and we're not seeing any unusual activity regarding unplanned pharmacy closures or pharmacist walkouts. We’re committed to providing access to consistent, safe, high-quality health care to the patients and communities we serve and are engaging in a continuous two-way dialogue with our pharmacists to directly address any concerns they have.
In response to recent feedback from our pharmacy teams, we’re making targeted investments to address their key concerns, including enabling teams to schedule additional support as needed, enhancing pharmacist and technician recruitment and hiring, and strengthening pharmacy technician training. Our goal is to develop a sustainable and scalable action plan to support both our pharmacists and our customers so we can continue delivering the high-quality care our patients depend on.
