The organisation representing a majority of pharmacists in the State yesterday called for changes in the law that would allow them prescribe antibiotics in certain circumstances and save patients the trouble of going to their GP.
The Irish Pharmaceutical Union said the change would free up GP surgeries and hospital accident and emergency departments to deal with more serious matters.
The union's president, Mr Richard Collis, said the change would also enable those just outside the medical card threshold to access treatment.
"In many instances, patients or their carers visit the community pharmacy before their GP to receive advice on the most suitable and cost-effective way to treat a particular medical condition. Often pharmacists can treat these patients from the range of medicines currently available to them, but more could be done if structured protocols were put in place for pharmacists to treat conditions such as minor skin infections, uncomplicated respiratory and urinary tract infections etc," he said.
Mr Collis, who made his comments during a presentation to the joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children, said the IPU was not looking for "a carte blanche to start handing out antibiotics left, right and centre" nor were they looking to usurp the role of the doctor. They just felt pharmacists were in an ideal position to treat routine ailments.
Furthermore, the pharmacists want new legislation to enable them dispense generic substitutes for drugs prescribed by doctors. The generics would be cheaper and they say this would save the State millions. "Figures from March 2003 show that in Finland generic substitutes were made by pharmacists on 14 per cent of all prescriptions leading to a saving of €40 million," Mr Collis said.
Pharmacists also want a system whereby they would spend up to 30 minutes with each patient they dispense drugs to so as to ensure the patient understands how to take the medication and the importance of finishing the course prescribed.
This, Mr Collis said, would improve compliance, reduce the need for patients to be hospitalised as a result of making mistakes and reduce wastage of drugs. There were huge savings to be made from such an initiative, he said, even if pharmacists were paid extra for the time they spent with patients.
Meanwhile the IPU said it felt paracetamol products should be sold only from pharmacies. Mr Collis said there was less suicide as a result of overdosing on paracetamol in countries such as France where the drug was sold only at chemists.
He denied claims by members of the committee that pharmacists were "ripping off" the public. He said there was no mark-up on 70 per cent of drugs dispensed in the State as they were dispensed to medical card holders.
However, pharmacists get paid €2.98 for dispensing to medical card holders. In respect of the other 30 per cent of medicines dispensed to private patients, pharmacists get a 33 per cent mark-up. Mr Collis claimed the price of drugs was controlled not by pharmacists but by State structures.
When Mayo TD Dr Gerry Cowley put it to him that he bought drugs in Paris for a third of the price charged in Ireland, Mr Collis said some drugs here were more expensive than in other EU countries, but by the same token some drugs here were cheaper than in other states.