After COVID: The Damage We Don’t Measure

 I returned to the clinical setting of Pharmacy after several years of pouring all my time and energy into writing—after listening to that inner voice that beckoned and dared me to become a writer. Eventually, I came to understand a hard truth: writing doesn’t pay the bills, at least not yet.

Coming back to work as a pharmacist in the post-corona era was a shock. I couldn’t help but notice how much working conditions had deteriorated. Back then, there was a morning break and an afternoon break, plus a lunch HOUR. All of that had quietly disappeared—much to the delight of business owners. Now I am left with only half an hour of unpaid lunch. After standing all day and working long hours, there are no breaks at all—only an unpaid half-hour!

I was genuinely excited to be back and be involved in providing essential services such as Pharmacy First, blood pressure monitoring, vaccinations and other patient-facing tasks. However, advances in clinical skills did not translate into better pay or better working conditions. Instead, pharmacy had turned into the territory of big multiples, where corporate priorities overshadow everything.

Staffing levels have been cut to the bone while workloads and responsibilities has soared. Even with longer hours, greater responsibility, and rising inflation, I earned less than I had many years earlier. Despite having worked in pharmacy before, I was told I would be paid as a newly qualified pharmacist. Interestingly enough, during my fifteen months of staying with the same multiple, I never received a single pay rise. It seems that once you are labelled “newly qualified,” you are doomed to remain newly qualified forever—at least as far as wages are concerned.

It was only after leaving the company and speaking with other locum pharmacists that I came to realise I should have been paid for my lunch breaks, as I remained signed in as the Responsible Pharmacist throughout. By staying signed in, I continued to accept full professional responsibility. Exploited or what?

Unfortunately, the trend of not paying for half an hour lunch seems to be the accepted trend. My question is: why are responsible organisations, despite knowing this, not challenging or addressing the issue?

As well as the power of corporates, I am now beginning to understand Brexit better too. I discovered one of the reasons why Brexit had to happened. It seems easier to exploit workplace entitlements when dealing with a single country rather than an entire continent—divide and conquer, perhaps?

In summary, we need to acknowledge and address the erosion of labour protections and workers’ rights in the aftermath of COVID.

By the way, do unions still exist in any meaningful way, or whether the COVID era stripped them of their power?