MINISTER FOR Health Mary Harney has firmly rebuffed calls from pharmacists for a rethink on the Governments decision to cut fees for patients on State drug schemes.
She also backed the HSE’s move to threaten legal proceedings against pharmacies which are refusing to fill prescriptions as part of the current dispute.
Despite widespread reports of delays and inconvenience faced by patients accessing drugs, the Minister claimed that overall “medicines continue to be provided to the patients of the country as a whole”.
The Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) claimed the HSE’s contingency plans for the dispute were continuing to unravel yesterday, the sixth day of the dispute, and were causing increasing hardship for patients around the country.
It said the worst-affected areas were counties Donegal, Waterford, Mayo, Kerry, north Dublin, Kilkenny, Galway and Limerick.
IPU president Liz Hoctor said hundreds of pharmacists would reopen their shops immediately if the Minister agreed to the appointment of an independent third party to review the impact of the cuts.
Responding to the Minister’s strongly-worded statement, Ms Hoctor acknowledged the dispute was fast reaching a stalemate but said pharmacists would resume normal services if a third-party review was agreed.
“The chaos can’t be allowed to continue,” she said, adding that pharmacists were increasingly worried about the potential for serious injury or even death if the dispute goes on into next week.
Ms Harney had earlier blamed pharmacists who had withdrawn their services for the delays.
She said she was also concerned to hear reports of medical card patients being charged for their medicines.
She offered the IPU the olive branch of talks on the development of pharmacy service in the future, but said these discussions could not deal with pricing issues.
The new payment rates for pharmacists introduced last month, which will save the exchequer €133 million, were now set in law, she said. “It is done. There will be no policy change, no change in the law to change the payment rates now.”
Ms Harney said the norm in disputes in the health service was that patients come first and services continue safely.
More than 1,100 pharmacists were contracted and paid to provide drugs free of charge to medical card patients and to patients covered by the State drugs scheme, and many were doing so fully.
“But where there are instances of the service not continuing in full by pharmacists who are in contract, the HSE must, on behalf of patients, use every possible means, including enforcement through the courts, to ensure contracts are implemented in full in every respect.
“We will not allow contracts made for patients to be ignored or cherry-picked.”
The Minister said that even after the cuts, taxpayers would be paying €420 million for the community pharmacy service. This was a fair payment.
“There can be no case now to divert money needed for health services in the autumn back to the pharmacy sector. And the financial situation of the country simply does not permit us to row back on savings that are now being made.”
Ms Harney again ruled out mediation in the dispute because of competition law and impending court proceedings brought by pharmacists.
John Corr, chairman of the IPU contracts committee, said it was continuing to receive reports of long delays, HSE dispensaries not having commonly used medicines, and prescriptions being incorrectly filled.
He claimed the situation in Donegal was “dire” and there were four-day delays in accessing drugs in Waterford city and Kilkenny.
The IPU also claimed there were long delays in north Dublin, while most pharmacies in Limerick and Galway cities were closed yesterday morning.
It said the HSE dispensaries in Cahirciveen and Ballina were closed yesterday.
