Hse V Pharmacists

zexstream

I have just read a advert in the Galway advertiser in regards to a threat to medical card holders in the Galway area.

Im not sure if it is just Galway or the country as a whole, but the fallout from this could mean many families being denied medicine for free using their medical cards.

The Advert was placed by a group calling themselves the concerned pharmacists of Galway City and County.

In the Advert they say;

"Concerned pharmacists in Galway city and county wish to clarify the current situation and certain misleading statements made by the HSE in recent weeks:

From 1st December the H.S.E will unilaterally break the terms of the pharmacist contract by paying only 92% of the wholesale price of all medicines dispensed under state schemes. e.g if an item cost pharmacists €100 the H.S.E will only pay €92.

76% of items dispensed under these state schemes are currently given out at wholesale cost plus a fee of €3.26. Even the HSE agrees that this is unsustainable.

if the H.S.E follows through with its proposal to pay pharmacists less than the wholesale cost price, the viability of many schemes e.g. medical card may be threatened.

The H.S.E is denying pharmacists their basic civil right of being represented by their trade union the IPU.

THE ABOVE MEANS YOUR SERVICE FROM YOUR PHARMACY IS BEING THREATENED BY THE H.S.E`S ACTIONS."
http://editions.pagesuite.co.uk//PageSuite3.aspx?page=1&scale=100&height=700&width=1000&editionid=40930&filekey=&path=_PSEDitions/Galway%20Advertiser/Galway%20Advertiser/2007-11-15/



Why hasnt there been more press coverage on this? How can the government allow many thousands of low paid families the possability of having to pay for medications that could be vital.

Maybe Bertie should stop giving himself payrises for a failing HSE.

Mr.Micro

I heard about something like it some months ago .I think it was in the Indo .Pharmacists get 18%extra of the cost of an item,I believe. The HSE wanted to and intends to reduce that to 9% .The trouble is the HSE like all the authorities want to row back now when some pharmacists were allowed to charge big mark ups unchecked up to now .The rest of us have to live with ever rising costs yet the Government and the likes of the HSE think they can turn the clock back .

InFront

It has been given press coverage recently enough, it's a national issue. However the fact that wholesale mark-up for pharmacies in Ireland, at just under 18% (twice the European average) suggests that there is more to this story than meets the eye and that it isn't all doom and gloom for the pharmacies.

Mick86

The HSE will of course, do what it wants. The Pharmacists will pass the shortfall onto the consumer.

juuge

My dad takes a tablet called Coversyl which costs 30euro a pkt in Ireland, in Spain it's 20 euro and in Tunisia where I was recently it costs the equivalent of 14 euro. No wonder our local chemist drives a Ceyanne.

dessie1971

I am a pharmacist, i don't drive a cayenne but i make a reasonable living considering the qualification i have and the work i put in to provide a quality service to my patients whom i generally care about. There would appear to be a lot of misinformation abounding as to how well we are renumerated for the sevices we provide, I did not get into this and am still not in this for the money, what i object to to is having to provide a service i feel is necessary and appreciated by my patients for less than nothing. That is what the HSE wants to impose on me. We make a fee of 3.26 euro on 75% of our prescription business through the Gms,regardless of the cost to me of the item. Today i supplied a man with devices for his insulin pump which cost me 400.00 euro, for that and the advice i offer to him i get 3.26 on top of the trade price. As of December 1st I will recieve 368.00 euro plus my fee of 3.26 euro meaning i will loose 28.74 euro every time i see him from next month. Forget about HSE spin, that man will NOT go without, i will see to that, we are health professionals and would not want a patient to suffer, but how long do you think i can go on like that? Not long i would expect. You are going to see a huge change in the way pharmaceutical care is provided in this country, and it will not be for the better. Pharmacies will close, particularly in rural areas where the majority of patients have a medical card, meaning large commutes for those already marginalised by our governments failings to provide adequate public transport in these areas. The medical card scheme is on its knees, bouyed up until now by payments to phamacies by private patients, this is and has always been wrong, we have said to the HSE we can save them money in many ways, for example we should be able to substitute the prescription your GP gives you for a cheaper generic form of the same drug. The truth is the big pharmaceutical companies are a bigger lobby group than you or I, they employ 26,000 people in this state, if we switched to cheaper generics they would up and leave and how would Bertie, Brian and Mary Harney look then!!!
There is always a bigger political picture to these things, your local pharmacist may drive a Cayenne but he/she sure as hell didn't get it from dispensing prescriptions, if he did i'll eat my Toyota Corolla!

juuge

dessie1971 wrote: »

I am a pharmacist, i don't drive a cayenne but i make a reasonable living considering the qualification i have and the work i put in to provide a quality service to my patients whom i generally care about. There would appear to be a lot of misinformation abounding as to how well we are renumerated for the sevices we provide, I did not get into this and am still not in this for the money, what i object to to is having to provide a service i feel is necessary and appreciated by my patients for less than nothing. That is what the HSE wants to impose on me. We make a fee of 3.26 euro on 75% of our prescription business through the Gms,regardless of the cost to me of the item. Today i supplied a man with devices for his insulin pump which cost me 400.00 euro, for that and the advice i offer to him i get 3.26 on top of the trade price. As of December 1st I will recieve 368.00 euro plus my fee of 3.26 euro meaning i will loose 28.74 euro every time i see him from next month. Forget about HSE spin, that man will NOT go without, i will see to that, we are health professionals and would not want a patient to suffer, but how long do you think i can go on like that? Not long i would expect. You are going to see a huge change in the way pharmaceutical care is provided in this country, and it will not be for the better. Pharmacies will close, particularly in rural areas where the majority of patients have a medical card, meaning large commutes for those already marginalised by our governments failings to provide adequate public transport in these areas. The medical card scheme is on its knees, bouyed up until now by payments to phamacies by private patients, this is and has always been wrong, we have said to the HSE we can save them money in many ways, for example we should be able to substitute the prescription your GP gives you for a cheaper generic form of the same drug. The truth is the big pharmaceutical companies are a bigger lobby group than you or I, they employ 26,000 people in this state, if we switched to cheaper generics they would up and leave and how would Bertie, Brian and Mary Harney look then!!!
There is always a bigger political picture to these things, your local pharmacist may drive a Cayenne but he/she sure as hell didn't get it from dispensing prescriptions, if he did i'll eat my Toyota Corolla!

I fully accept your position and your points are very well made, however I can only judge the system by how it affects me, and from where I'm sitting Chemist shops and Pharmacies seem to be doing very nicely, and good luck to them !.

DublinWriter

juuge wrote: »

No wonder our local chemist drives a Ceyanne.

Ours drives an 04 Merc SL 600.

At times the IPU make the Taliban look like a sewing group.

Does anyone remember the fuss they kicked up when supermarkets were allowed to sell Aspirin?

Not forgetting their recent 'toys out of the pram' incident when they targeted one of the most vulnerable groups in society by refusing to dispense Methadone.

What says it all about the IPU is the block they put in place to prevent foreign pharmacists from setting up *their own* shops in Ireland, but I as an unqualified Irish person could set up my own pharmacy tomorrow and employ a foreign pharmacist to front it.

Needless to say it's not just the pharmacists on the make. I worked in the pharma business for 5 years for a number of different multi-nationals and the profits they make are unreal.