Less than 1.5% of pharmacies in Poland have signed up to a new government scheme to offer free Covid testing on site. And some that did so have already withdrawn from the programme – which was only launched six days ago – citing the difficulties of meeting the requirements.
According to yesterday’s figures, free lateral flow (antigen) testing was available at a total of 183 pharmacies out of the almost 13,000 in Poland, reports 300Gospodarka, an economics news service.
Moreover, not all of those on the list have actually managed to carry out testing yet. Between Thursday and Sunday, a total of 83 pharmacies conducted 2,263 free rapid flow tests. By comparison, overall around 158,000 official tests have been carried out per day in Poland over the last week.
Meanwhile, among the 105 pharmacies that had signed up on the first day of the scheme, at least nine have since decided to withdraw, reports Wirtualna Polska.
“We were unable to adapt to the requirements that appeared the night before the programme began,” said one pharmacist. These include needing to make a separate entrance available and keep patients taking a test apart from others.
“We also didn’t receive the materials and protective equipment that was supposed to be guaranteed. We’re pulling out and not getting involved any more,” the pharmacist told Wirtualna Polska.
Free Covid tests will be offered in pharmacies from next week and quarantine is to be cut from 10 days to 7, the government has announced after Poland today recorded its highest ever number of new infections https://t.co/mavfcKcSHp
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) January 21, 2022
The scale of the phenomenon and reasons for pharmacies pulling out are unclear, although being overwhelmed by patients and receiving insufficient supplies – starter packets sufficient for only a few hours’ testing – appear to be factors, Marek Tomków of the Polish Pharmaceutical Chamber told Wirtualna Polska.
His colleague Michał Byliniak said that the chamber is searching for ways, based on the experiences of other European countries, to make it easier for pharmacies to join the testing system “so that patients have fewer barriers in rapid detection of infection”.
The ministry of health confirmed to Wirtualna Polska that “a dozen or so” pharmacies have so far withdrawn from the scheme. “They had not expected such high interest in testing, which blocked their main activity,” a ministry spokeswoman said.
When the programme was announced, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki initially spoke of testing in “all pharmacies”. However, Adam Niedzielski, the health minister, quickly clarified that a suitable infrastructure including a separate room would be required, meaning that many pharmacies would not meet the requirements.
The scheme was introduced in response to the start of the fifth wave of the pandemic in Poland, which has seen the country recording its highest ever numbers of infections. Poland has also conducted the European Union’s lowest number of tests in proportion to population since the start of the pandemic.
While the pharmacy programme has so far struggled, increasing numbers of people have been purchasing rapid flow tests to perform on themselves at home. Some 2.4 million such tests were sold in January, according to data from PEX PharmaSequence cited by 300Gospodarka.
This compared to 980,000 in December and 270,000 in November. Since the data come from only around half of Poland’s pharmacies and tests can also be bought at other outlets, the actual number sold in January is probably well over 4 million.
Main image credit: Grzegorz Celejewski / Agencja Wyborcza.pl
Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.
