IPU calls for support in repealing legislation

THE REPRESENTATIVE body for pharmacists is seeking to enlist other medical groups in a campaign to repeal legislation allowing the Minister the Health set payment levels for those providing services to a health sector body.

The Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) said the provision, contained in the recent financial emergency measures passed by Oireachtas, allows the Minister to ignore the contracts of healthcare professionals and arbitrarily reduce the professional fees paid to pharmacists and other groups for the provision of frontline services

The union’s president, Liz Hoctor, told The Irish Times the legislation was “draconian and more appropriate in a dictatorship than in a democracy”.

She said pharmacists were deeply concerned that the legislation would be used by the Government to impose a series of cuts on the sector that would undermine the viability of pharmacies across the State.

Last week, the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, signalled Government deliberations on plans to cut professional fees paid to pharmacists and other groups would “conclude in the very near future”.

Ms Harney also said that €50 million in savings from community pharmacy reimbursement payments – the mark-up on medicines paid to pharmacists for dispensing them under the various community drug schemes – had been assumed in this year’s HSE budget.

At the IPU’s annual conference in Waterford, Ms Hoctor said the emergency legislation “trampled on the rights” of pharmacists and superseded existing contracts with the HSE.

She called on other organisations “of a like mind” to join pharmacists in their campaign to have the legislation repealed.

“The sooner it is removed from the statute books, the better for democracy, the better for society and the better for the citizens of this country – who are our concern and our care as pharmacists.”

Delegates at the conference passed a motion calling for the legislation to be repealed in the interests of patients and frontline services.

Fintan Hourihan, chief executive of the Irish Dental Association, said it was important the new powers bestowed on the Minister were associated with the current decline in the economic circumstances of the State. “It follows that a return to healthier public finances should be accompanied by a repeal of the Act’s provisions,” he said.

Martin O’Brien, president of the Association of Optometrists Ireland, said: “We are cognisant of the economic situation the country is in, but we have grave concerns that the legislation would lead to a reduction in the fees paid for eye tests which are already too low given the cost of providing them.”