GPs call for review of prescription charge

Family doctors have called for an independent review of the prescription charge, saying it is causing undue hardship to sections of the population.

The Irish Medical Organisation says there are "serious anomalies" in the application of the €2.50 per item charge on medical card holder. It also says the level of the charge, which was increased from €1.50 in the last budget, is forcing vulnerable patients to give up their medication.

The IMO wrote to Minister for Health James Reilly three months ago in relation to its concerns about the charge, but has yet to receive a response. The anomalies it refers to particularly affect patients who require mixed doses of medication, or who are on short and varying courses of tablets. In these cases, patients have to pay the fee for each new prescription.

Varying strengths
The IMO gives the example of a patient on warfarin who is advised to take daily doses that involve mixing a number of different tablets of varying strengths. A patient who requires three different types of tablet will be liable for three dispensing fees for three different amounts of the same tablet per month.

Psychiatric or cardiac patients who are being stabilised clinically will be given short courses of tablets lasting days. After a review, the dose may then change. They, too, will have to pay each prescription charge.

Asylum-seekers on €19.50 weekly allowance who require medication are being specially penalised for their illness, according to the IMO.

“All of these anomalies have the potential effect of reducing compliance with medication and the resultant danger of an irreversible development of morbidity [sickness] would eclipse any gains from the prescription fee,” the letter states.

IMO GP committee chair Dr Ray Walley says he is aware of patients who have stopped taking essential medication because they cannot afford to pay the charge. The result will be extra long-term costs for the State in the long term, he predicts.

Former Minister for Health Mary Harney introduced the charge in 2010 to counter over- prescribing. It was originally set at 50 cent per item with a cap of €10 per family per month. Dr Reilly promised to abolish the charge before taking office but instead it has been increased twice.