Pharmacy dispute - Sit down and sort out drugs row

PHARMACIST are threatening that in 15 days’ time medical card holders will have to pay for drugs and that they will have to seek refunds from the State unless the Health Services Executive abandons attempts to get them to sign a new, less lucrative contract.

Just as in an a earlier round in this row, when 140 pharmacies in Dublin decided that they would not supply people using methadone in their struggle with heroin addiction, a vulnerable group may become the meat in the sandwich in this dispute over the cost of drugs.

The HSE and the pharmacies are at loggerheads over the HSE plan to cut €€100 million from its drugs bill. HSE analysis has shown that the current medicine wholesale mark-up in Ireland, at 17.66%, is more than double the EU average.