A year ago, pharmacists in French-speaking Switzerland called for consultations in pharmacies to relieve congestion in hospital emergency rooms. But pharmacy consultations do not seem to have made it possible to respond to the tense situation during the last holidays.
In the event of back pain, flu symptoms or burning, a pharmacy consultation allows you to obtain certain medications without a doctor’s prescription. But during the 2024 end-of-year holidays, it was emergencies that were once again under pressure in French-speaking Switzerland. The emergency services at Valais Hospital had to face an “exceptional overload situation”. And in the canton of Vaud, the central doctors on call experienced a peak with 1,600 telephone calls on December 30.
There are no official Vaud statistics, but patients do not seem to have adopted the reflex of first consulting a pharmacy, according to Christophe Berger, president of the Vaud pharmacy society, interviewed Tuesday in Matinale.
During the New Year period, the pharmacist says he served “patients who had consulted emergency centers and who needed medications that can be given most of the time without a prescription, for cold symptoms for example.”
Trained pharmacists
Christophe Berger recalls that pharmacists have been specially trained for these emergency consultations and that they redirect if necessary. But although the pharmacy consultation is less expensive than the emergency room, it is not reimbursed by basic insurance. Christophe Berger hopes that Parliament will change the situation in the near future.
The pharmacist emphasizes the importance of communicating before periods that risk being overloaded. For its part, the State of Vaud also considers it useful to raise awareness in January, during the flu period, as it did last year.
French-speaking Switzerland concerned
For its part, the canton of Geneva communicated in December. The canton had reminded that in the event of a non-vital medical situation, there are alternatives to emergency services. The population was encouraged to first call on the attending physicians or, in the event of their absence, the association of doctors of the canton of Geneva. The canton also cited home doctor services, the pediatric on-call network, psychiatric and medical-dental consultations as well as pharmacies.
At the end of 2024, the Valais Hospital for its part communicated that its teams were faced with “an exceptional overload situation”. At issue: the number of injuries on the ski slopes and the flu. Valais is strengthening emergency staff in the coming weeks, with nine additional positions.
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