Prescription fee hits sick and poor

THE Government’s proposal to introduce a per item charge for prescriptions of medical card-holders is a measure which will hit the sickest and poorest in society.

It is difficult to understand why the Government would target this group while continuing to proclaim it will protect the most vulnerable during its current cost-cutting exercise.

Health Minister Mary Harney has argued that the measure is necessary to raise revenue for the exchequer and to address the issue of over-prescribing of medication.

Age Action agrees that over-prescribing is an issue. Several studies, published in peer-reviewed medical journals in recent years, have highlighted the problem of inappropriate prescribing to older people in Ireland.

However, imposing a financial penalty on patients will do nothing to stop this. Medical card patients do not write their own prescriptions.

The reality is that this measure may have a more negative result.

By imposing a financial penalty on people with low incomes and/or high medical costs provides a disincentive for them to fill their prescriptions.

They do not write these prescriptions, so the only power they have in the process is to ration their medication and seek to fill them out less often. The bottom line is that some people on long-term medications may begin taking less medication than is recommended by their doctor.

Obviously this is not the intention of the minister’s charge.

There is also a better way of raising revenue than having to target the poorest and sickest people.

The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) has suggested that it could provide savings of up to €300 million – 10 times the intended revenue target for the new prescription charge. The IMO propose that this could be done by shifting towards prescribing more generic medication and reviewing the prescriptions of patients on a regular basis.

This promises the prospect of a medical service that not only produces greater savings for the exchequer, but also provides improved patient care.

The Government must engage with the medical profession and the pharmaceutical sector to achieve better value and improved practices, rather than taking the more damaging option of targeting the sickest and poorest citizens.

Eamon Timmins

Age Action

Lr Camden Street

Dublin 2