Pharmacists say they are copping screamed abuse and threats from aggressive customers who have “lost their minds totally” amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

On Thursday the federal government announced tough restrictions to medical items from pharmacies being hoarded, limiting customers to a single unit of Ventolin and children’s paracetamol at a time, and restricting some prescription medicines to one month’s supply.

Many pharmacies across the country had already introduced limits in an attempt to stop customers stockpiling prescription medications and stripping their shelves of painkillers, cold and flu tablets, hand sanitiser, toilet paper and asthma medication.

Those limits were provoking an angry response, even before the new crackdown was announced by the federal government.

Staff at the Family Pharmacy Granville in Sydney’s west said they have had to call the police to deal with customers angry at the lack of hand sanitiser and toilet paper.

One customer was asked to consider other children as he tried to bulk buy children’s painkillers. He replied: “Fuck the other kids.”

“It’s crazy,” said David Morcos, the pharmacy’s account manager. “Everyone has turned into an animal.”

Another pharmacy in Sydney’s south said customers had been abusing staff when they tried to enforce restrictions.

The pharmacy’s supervisor, who asked not to be named, said people had “lost their minds totally”.

“You think tomorrow’s [going to be] a better day,” she said.“But it’s not. It’s worse.”

The aggression has prompted pleas for calm from the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia. Its national president, Associate Prof Chris Freeman, said national supplies were adequate to deal with the increased demand.

He urged the community to remember that pharmacists were “working in the best interests of the community and their patients”.

“Demand for medicines has increased considerably in response to the Covid-19 pandemic which has the potential for numerous product lines to be out of stock, and some pharmacists are being pressured and abused to provide unsafe quantities of medicine,” he said.

“There is currently no anticipation of widespread national medicine shortages. However, if current levels of demand through excessive purchasing continue, supply interruptions will occur which is why these measures have been put in place.”

At the Blue Cross Pharmacy in Sydney’s south, demand has increased three-fold in the past few weeks.

Pharmacist Farheen Hussain said it had become common for her shelves to be stripped bare, despite the purchasing limits.

Hussain said she had been yelled and sworn at, but thankfully nothing more serious.

“They’re very cranky. Very aggravated,” she said. “People are, I guess, taking out their stress and anger on us as well.”

Morcos said customers were coming from far-flung parts of Sydney after going to five or six stores beforehand. He said he could understand the frustration, but urged people to stick together.

“The way we feel is that we’re a community pharmacy, we should be sticking together,” he said.

“The whole community should be sticking together and helping each other out. But they’re not. Everyone’s out for themselves, which is quite sad.”

John Venetoulis, the pharmacist at Maroubra Family Pharmacy, said he had not experienced abuse from customers.

But he had seen the extraordinary lengths some are going to to get toilet paper. The pharmacy received a delivery of 20 pallets of toilet paper on Tuesday. Customers were waiting for the delivery.

“People followed him in, it didn’t last 10 minutes,” Venetoulis said.

“There was six in a pallet, so that is 120 of 10-pack toilet paper.”

Most Australian pharmacies source their stock from one of three major wholesalers. The wholesalers have reassured Australians that there is plenty of supply. But pharmacists said distribution from wholesalers, in some cases, had slowed significantly.

A major wholesaler, Symbion, told the Guardian this week that demand was significant but there was sufficient supply to match it.

“No pharmacy brand, organisation or order is being prioritised at this time,” a spokesman said. “From Symbion’s perspective, metropolitan and rural pharmacies are being equally served.”