Serious Problem; Unserious Explanation

Drug stores around Vermont have been trimming back their hours in response to a growing shortage of pharmacists. It's a problem nationwide, and some think it may be especially acute in Vermont because the state lacks a pharmacy school.
    Times Argus

This is, plainly, a serious problem.  But not one that is confined to drug stores and pharmacists.  Vermont's hospitals are short-staffed on physicians.  So much so that the Bennington hospital briefly considered suspending obstetric service on weekends.  You either had to do some serious  long term planing or make sure you could get to, say, Albany in time. 

Blaming the shortage on the lack of a pharmacy school within the state's borders seems like a reach.  But not so much of one as this:

"There's no earthly excuse for a corporation to be allowed to run itself the way this one does," Gwin said. "They appear to be much more interested in the bottom line than the people they serve."

Ms. Gwin, who is identified in the story as former "case manager for the Central Vermont Council on Aging," blames Rite Aid for not hiring enough pharmacists.  So what is the implied solution?  Pass a law?

Remember that old movie line, "If you build it, they will come." 

Vermont sometimes seems determined to stand that one on its head. 

Comments

[G. Cross]

Albany College of Pharmacy is currently negotiating with the Winooski downtown developer for space in the Champlain Mill to create a branch program in Vermont. They have recently advertised for instructors and coordinators, thus it would seem that this project is on a fast track. While the problem is nation-wide, a college in Vermont should help the situation in our state.

[anonymous]

I had forgotten about the Bennington issue. Couple that with what just happend at CVH -- layoffs, wage freezes, etc -- because of the loss of three surgeons (the ones who generate the income that pays everyone's salaries), the rumblings that some doctors are refusing to participate in Catamount Heath, and the fact that we are a rapidly aging state. The "bottom line", to use Mrs. Gwin's term, is that if Vermont does not stop driving away caregivers with unreasonable, unrealistic cost controls and regulations, and taxes on their personal income there will be no health care in Vermont, "free" or otherwise.