Pharmacists get tough - Patients will be the ones that suffer

Following a meeting in Cork on Thursday evening, more than 140 local pharmacists agreed to stop dispensing drugs on the Drug Payment Scheme and General Medical Scheme after December 1, if the Health Service Executive does not reverse its decision to cut the prices it pays for the drugs.

The pharmacists are indignant at the way the HSE unilaterally announced it was cutting the mark-up it pays on the manufacturer’s price from 17.66% to 8% on January 1, 2008. That will then be further cut to 7% on January 1, 2009.

From November 1, those whose drugs cost more than 85 a month will have to pay the excess to the pharmacies and then get reimbursed by the Health Service Executive. Previously the pharmacies recouped all of the money from the HSE.

Although the initial stage of this industrial action relates only to Cork pharmacists, it is likely to be extended nationwide.

The Irish Pharmaceutical Union had called on the Health Service Executive to discuss the matter. That should have been the logical way to handle things in the first place, but the union suspects the unilateral move was an “attempt by the HSE to take the union out of the negotiation equation”. It was apparently trying to have “a totally free hand in determining fees for pharmacy services”.

Both sides seem to be playing tough, but it is the vulnerable patients that will suffer. This is grossly unfair.