Toowoomba pharmacies swamped with phone calls, staff abused over lack of rapid antigen tests

With at-home Covid testing kits getting harder to come by, pharmacists have reported staff being abused, and getting inundated with calls, as people desperately search for stock of rapid antigen tests.

As Covid has continued to spread through the Toowoomba community, rapid antigen tests have become the hottest item on store shelves, if there’s any to be found.

With many in the community scrambling to find an at-home test kit to fulfil quarantine requirements or avoid the hours-long queue at PCR testing sites, pharmacists have come into the firing line, fielding hundreds of inquiries a day from people desperate to buy a test.

The soaring demand for RATs has meant they’ve become harder and harder to find, with frustrations boiling over and pharmacy staff reportedly abused by shoppers trying to get their hands on the testing kit.

Southtown Pharmacy owner and pharmacist Richard Spencer said he had grown frustrated with the lack of supply of rapid antigen tests, as well the handling of the situation by state and federal government bureaucracy.

“The storyline screams of something from (ABC government satire) Utopia,” he said.

“The timing has been pretty ordinary. December is our peak time as it is, which was then compounded with the announcement the booster would be allowed earlier, but with the vaccine supply chain on holidays people have been lining up for their third dose.”

To make matters worse, Mr Spencer said pharmacists had to deal with constant phone calls from people desperate to buy a RAT when there were none to be found.

“I had 1300 tests back-ordered through my supplier which were supposed to arrive Monday after a few push-backs, and now they’ve been pushed back to February,” he said.

“We’ve got all this uncertainty at the moment, and we still don’t know about how the pensioner system is meant to come out of stock that I don’t have for free, it doesn’t make sense. I don’t now where that leaves me.

“With Covid in the community it’s tricky, and people just want to get back their lives.”

While Mr Spencer said there had only been the one confrontation with a customer over a RAT, that hadn’t been the case everywhere.

The owner of another Toowoomba pharmacy, who didn’t want to be named, said staff had been abused by desperate customers when told there were no RATs in stock.

“It’s like 2020 all over again,” the owner said.

“Back then we had to say we had no hand sanitiser or masks, and now we don’t have any RATs.

“Our staff are exhausted and everybody’s at their limit. I understand that a lot of people are under stress and going everywhere to find a test, but for them to vent their frustrations out on us is not fair at all.

“I think there’s widespread community panic which is greater now than ever, there’s still that unknown of what’s next and that’s what people are really scared of.”

COVID-19 rapid antigen test. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nicholas Eagar

The pharmacy owner said their phone started ringing before their doors opened with people calling to ask if they had any RATs in stock, and they had received more than 100 calls a day for the past week.

“We can only do so much, it’s not our fault, and our poor staff have been the ones dealing with it while trying to keep everyone happy,” the owner said.

Professional Pharmacists Australia, which represents employee pharmacists, has raised concerns that the Federal Government’s undersupply of RATs is compromising the health and safety of pharmacy workers and the general public.

Reports have emerged in recent days that some pharmacy owners were actually conducting the tests to meet the demand in the absence of an adequate supply of rapid antigen tests.

CEO Jill McCabe said the Federal Government’s poor preparation for the supply of RATs could lead to an unsafe testing regimen.

“While access to a limited number of tests for concession card holders was a small step in the right direction – it’s still grossly inadequate,” Ms McCabe said.

“We need to make RATs freely available to all, and we need to get the supply of these tests into a range of settings – not just in pharmacies.

“The tests could be supplied at state hubs, community locations or sent to people in their homes. This approach has worked in the UK, and it could work here.

“Because of the undersupply of tests and testing options, pharmacists are being inundated with calls for tests and are also expected to dispense medications, administer vaccinations and provide other health services. It simply isn’t safe.”

Professional Pharmacists Australia president Dr Geoff Marsh said pharmacists were completely exhausted and incredibly anxious about their working environment.

Dr March said there was concern that some people who tested positive using a rapid antigen test were going to pharmacies for advice and urgent alerts needed to be issued to stop people doing this.

“Government must get public health messages out that drive people to the right health services and support them to make sound decisions to receive health care and also reduce the spread of the virus,” he said.

“The current situation is threatening the health and safety of pharmacy workers and the broader community.”

Originally published as Toowoomba pharmacies swamped with phone calls, staff abused over lack of rapid antigen tests