THE THREAT by hundreds of pharmacists to withdraw from dispensing medicines under the medical card and various community drug schemes from today has been averted.
Pharmacists remain in dispute with the Health Service Executive (HSE) over controversial new pricing arrangements, but a deal enabling normal service to continue was agreed last night.
It was agreed during contacts between the Irish Pharmacy Union and health service management.
Under the deal the HSE will remove two categories of drugs - fridge items such as insulin and controlled drugs such as morphine - from the scope of the cuts in reimbursement levels which it introduced unilaterally in March.
Pharmacists do not receive discounts from wholesalers for these particular drugs. The HSE has also agreed to finalise a number of long-standing issues for pharmacists such as the operation of the methadone scheme and increases due under national agreements by the end of May.
The pharmacy union said last night that the Government and the HSE had given commitments to recognise it as the representative body for pharmacists. It said the HSE had also committed to engaging in contractual discussions with it "on all matters including potential remuneration models".
The deal does not address the substantive issue of the controversial new pricing system for pharmacists but it will allow existing dispensing services to continue while both a legal action against the HSE cuts, scheduled for July 22nd, and an independent assessment of future pharmacy fee structures take their course.
Around 800 pharmacists had told the HSE that they planned to withdraw from contracts to dispense medicines under the medical card and the various community drug schemes in protest at a reduction of 8 per cent in reimbursement levels.
The HSE was set to seek injunctions in the High Court today to prevent pharmacists from withdrawing from their contracts without providing three months notice of the move but this is not now expected to take place.
The pharmacy union said that in addition to the commitments given by the HSE and the Government, it also attached particular significance to a letter written by the chairman of the independent body established by the Government to assess how much pharmacists should be paid in the future under the community drug schemes.
In this letter, which was sent to Minister for Health Mary Harney, the chairman of the body, former IDA chief Seán Dorgan, signalled that it may recommend alternatives to the controversial across-the-board reimbursement cuts introduced by the HSE.
The letter, reported in The Irish Times yesterday, says that the group is not concentrating solely on a single flat fee for pharmacists for dispensing. "There are complexities in the nature of the pharmacy businesses that may require more graduated and sophisticated approaches than have been proposed to date," it states.
Irish Pharmacy Union president Michael Guckian said the developments over recent days had given all parties an opportunity to step back and to allow the independent body on pharmacy contract pricing to complete its work and for the HSE to deliver on its commitments.
"Therefore I am now recommending that pharmacists across the country continue dispensing medicines on the community drugs schemes tomorrow and through the weeks ahead.
"However, it should be clearly understood that many of the issues at the heart of this dispute have not yet been fully resolved and that our opposition to the unilateral breach of our contracts by the HSE and the imposition of cuts in payment by the HSE remains absolute," he said.