It is not a warning strike like the recent one at the railway, because the pharmacists are self-employed. But for the public, it boils down to the same thing: On Wednesday, many pharmacies remain closed in protest, those who need medicines have to buy them at other times and may stand in line.

In notices, the companies cleverly ask the patients for understanding. They recall the annoying supply bottlenecks, complain that pharmacies lack the flexibility to cope, and suggest that politicians and insurance companies are to blame: "The supply system is full of bureaucracy and the threat of fines to health insurance companies."

Correlations are not causalities

The necessary extra work is not rewarded, and even the fixed amount as the main remuneration has not risen for ten years, despite rising costs. Because of these economic reasons and also because there was a lack of young people and staff, more pharmacies closed than ever before.

All these clues are not entirely wrong, but not entirely correct either, correlations are not causalities. For example, the number of pharmacists, students and apprentices has been increasing for years, but is not decreasing. The problem of sites is also not their number, but their distribution. In many cities there is a pharmacy in every third street, but in the countryside they are sometimes missing. There should be incentives to settle here, and politicians and lobbyists should concentrate on this, not on the blame game that the other side is allegedly dealing with false figures.

Of course, pharmacies are right when they accuse Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) of confusing increasing sales with rising results. But Lauterbach's argument that companies received a lot of money for a lot of work during the Corona period also stands out.

The solution to the dispute is obvious: one would have to make the profits transparent in order to see how well or badly the pharmacies are really doing. As long as this does not happen, the impression of complaining at a high level is created. The understanding for the work stoppage on Wednesday is correspondingly low.