Health minister meets pharmacy union to resolve delay in rollout of free HRT

By Cate McCurry, PA

Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said she has met with the Irish Pharmacy Union in an attempt to resolve the delay in rolling out a national plan to make hormone replacement therapy (HRT) free to all women.

Ms Carroll MacNeill said there was a perception it would be “free entirely” and that the Government would cover the dispensing fee, but this is not the case.

Last year, former minister for health Stephen Donnelly said the scheme would be operational from January, but there has been a delay in rolling out the measure nationwide, meaning women are continuing to pay.

HRT is a medicine-based treatment used to relieve symptoms of menopause and perimenopause.

Speaking in Dún Laoghaire on Wednesday, Ms Carroll MacNeill said women are paying around €60 for HRT, of which €40 is the cost of the medication and around €20 is the fee that pharmacists charge for dispensing, but it varies among different pharmacies.

She said: “So what Stephen Donnelly did in the budget last year was secure €20 million to pay for the product. That would have paid for the €40, but not to cover the dispensing fee.

“In that instance, and that was to be implemented since January 1st, so (women) should have been paying €20 since the beginning of January.

“What’s going on is that there was a lack of the … Stephen Donnelly was very clear that the money was for the medication – and I’ve gone back and I’ve checked the statements and checked the press statements, and it was for the medication.

“I think more broadly there was a perception that it was free entirely, that it was going to cover the dispensing fee, and the way that he did it, it was a new way of doing it.

“It was an effort to begin to do something, but there wasn’t agreement with the pharmacist that they would dispense it, and so it wasn’t implemented, even though it has been available to be implemented since the beginning of January.

“Recognising that coming into the department, I had a meeting with the Pharmacy Union on the 11th of February and had a good discussion with them about it.

“They have broader priorities generally, around reversing some of spending cuts, increasing fees generally. There’s a body of work to do that and I absolutely recognise that.”

The Fine Gael minister said she wants to see pharmacies doing a “great deal more” and expanding their role in healthcare, including prescribing for common conditions.

She said: “I think there’s quite a huge opportunity to do that. But this has been an unusual engagement, because it’s something new that the state hasn’t done that before, where they’ve paid for the medication, but not the dispensing fee.

“Most women have said to me that they would be happy to pay the dispensing fee.

“I recognise that pharmacists have an expertise and that they bring that expertise to advising women, to managing the medication, and so what I’m trying to do is find a space in the middle where I can do something that recognises pharmacists’ work, and also maintain my budget discipline within the Department of Health.”

She also said there should be more transparency around the breakdown of the costs, including dispensing fees charged by pharmacists.