working as a pharmacy technician at a rite aid near pittsburgh. in october, she abruptly quit the job she loved and thought she would require from. all of the parts of my job i truly enjoyed over the years has slowly just gone away with pandemic stress and just all the unpleasantness going on in health care and in retail today. reporter: pharmacy techs support the pharmacist, count pills, answer calls, work the register and more, but increasingly they re quitting in a survey of independent pharmacy owners, nearly 90% say they can t find technicians. why are pharmacy techs so fed up? i mean, i really think a lot of it comes to the fact that we are grossly underpaid across the board. median pay is about $16 an hour. but it is not just wages. it was routine in my store when i was leaving to be three to five hundred scripts past due at any given time reporter: this means people could be going without their needed medication for days absolutely. reporter: nbc news spoke to 2
measures it wants to negotiate with the white house. so there may be soon a new category related to the shortage, pharmacy technicians. it s leading to store closures across the country and delays on prescriptions. reporter: mom of four, heidi strauss, spent more than 16 years as a pharmacy technician at a rite aid. she quit in october. all the parts of my job they ve truly enjoyed over the years have gone away with pandemic stress and all the unpleasantness that s going on in health care and retail today. reporter: pharmacy tech supports the pharmacists, answer calls, work the register, and more. recently they re quitting. independent pharmacy owners make up a third of retailers. they say they can t find
we re still seeing cases coming in of young people, unvaccinated, we have to do something drastic to fix this. i think that s encouraging by requiring travel, vaccination for travel. i m all for it at this point. dr. tyson bell, good to talk to you. thank you for spending time with us. it s not just doctors and nurses we re seeing leave the health field lately. it s pharmacy technicians too. they re the folks who fill prescriptions and give out shots at your local pharmacy and they say they re underpaid and undervalued. here s vicky nguyen. reporter: mom of four spent more than 16 years working as a pharmacy technician at a rite aid near pittsburgh. in october she quit the job he loved. all the parts of my job i have enjoyed over the years have gone away with pandemic stress and just all the unpleasantness that is going on in health care and retail today. reporter: pharmacy techs
stay inside. hopefully that is how people are dealing with it, joe, back to you. absolutely, that is not outdoor weather at all. steve paterson, thank you, my friend. many of us are feeling burned out from the stress of the pandemic. that is especially true for health care workers. as vicky wynn tells us, pharmacy technicians as well. heidi spent 15 years working as a pharmacy technician. all of the parts of my job that i have started to love have gone away with pandemic stress and just all of the unpleasantness in health care and retail today. they support the pharmacists, count pills, work the register and more but they re increasingly quitting. in a third of pharmacy owners nearly 90% say they can t find
attacked being attacked, shop workers being attacked. there is a wider issue here attacked. there is a wider issue here as attacked. there is a wider issue here as well about how we deal with this unpleasantness. let here as well about how we deal with this unpleasantness. this unpleasantness. let me tell you what i ve this unpleasantness. let me tell you what i ve just this unpleasantness. let me tell you what i ve just been this unpleasantness. let me tell you what i ve just been passed, - this unpleasantness. let me tell you what i ve just been passed, a - this unpleasantness. let me tell you what i ve just been passed, a piece i what i vejust been passed, a piece of news from our bbc s cotton counterpart saying counsellors in glasgow have been advised not to hold face to face surgeries until more information is known about the death of sir david amess. the chief executive of the council has emailed members with updated advice last friday. they are asked to raise any secu