Front line health services will be seriously damaged by the Minister for Health and Children’s decision to cut payments by 36 per cent to pharmacists for providing medicines and advice to patients on the community drugs schemes , according to the Irish Pharmacy Union [IPU], the representative body for 1,900 community pharmacists.
Local pharmacist John O’Connell from O’Connell’s Pharmacy in Kilkenny stated; “These cuts announced today amount to a 36 per cent reduction in the current level of payments to pharmacists. These massive cuts are utterly disproportionate and totally unsustainable. These cuts compromise patient services and up to 5,000 jobs in pharmacies could be lost as a direct result of this Government decision.
“Although pharmacists are not responsible for rising health costs and have always provided value for money, we had indicated to Government that we were willing to accept a cut equivalent to eight per cent of our fees in the national interest. This was in line with cuts being proposed in other parts of the health service.”
Mr O’Connell described the small increase in the fees for dispensing medicines and providing advice to medical card patients as a fig leaf – “it’s a clumsy attempt to mask the true extent of the cuts”, which amount to 36 per cent of pharmacists’ payments from the HSE. He also said the cuts will wipe out pharmacists’ margins and their capacity to deliver and sustain services through the negotiation of trading terms. The dispensing fee per item now being proposed is, on average, 33 per cent lower than the rate put forward by the Minister’s own Independent Body late last year. “No amount of spin or distortion of fact will hide the devastating reality of these cuts, which is an overall cut of 36 per cent for delivering the State’s community drugs schemes.”
Also commenting on the issue, IPU president Liz Hoctor said, “This minister seems determined to destroy one of the few parts of the health service that has managed to continue to deliver effective patient care in an otherwise very dysfunctional health service. The irrational nature of this decision again highlights the lack of leadership and vision in either the Department of Health and Children or the Health Service Executive and their scant regard for patient services.
Ms Hoctor continued, “the Minister for Health and Children has used Section 9 of the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Act 2009 in a vindictive fashion to circumvent a High Court Judgement, which found that the HSE had acted unlawfully by cutting pharmacists’ payments in March 2008.” She said, Section 9 of the Act should be repealed at the earliest opportunity “if it is to be used in this cynical fashion.”
The union is now seeking an urgent meeting with the minister.
