A pregnant PriceWatch reader heading into her third trimester was recently diagnosed with a mild case of anaemia and told she need an iron supplement. The product she was advised to take goes by the name of Galfer and when she asked her doctor if a prescription was needed for it, the doctor said it was. She collected the prescription from her GP and went to her local chemist where she was charged €5 for 28 tablets.

Everything seemed fine until she was leaving the shop and spotted the same iron supplement on the shelf with a price tag of €2.14. "I asked the pharmacist what the difference was between the prescription and the non-prescription tablets and was told there wasn't any." The reason for the extra charge was the dispensing charge which pharmacists impose for handling all prescriptions. "It was more than the price of the product and it took her 30 seconds to get it for me," our reader says.

She then asked whether she should dispense with her prescription to avoid paying the fee in future and buy the over-the-counter supplement and was told she should. "I think the doctor should have known that it was available over the counter. I also think the pharmacist should have told me that it was also available over the counter before taking my money," she writes.

She asks whether pharmacists in general have a policy in place for one-time prescription products that are newly available over the counter. "If not, they certainly should and they should tell their customers about the savings that can be made - or are they so anxious to make money?"

We spoke to a pharmacist and asked if Galfer had recently come off prescription and whether or not there was a policy in place across all pharmacies in the State to handle issues like this.

We were told that it has been off prescription for at least two years. He said that although it is available over the counter, hospitals will often give expectant mothers details of the medication in the form of a prescription to make sure they get the correct product.

Many pharmacists will just sell the patient the product without adding on the dispensing fee but it is very much up to individual shops.

There is one way our reader may be able to benefit from getting the product on prescription if she can avail of the Drug Payment Scheme under which no one has to spend more than €85 per month on prescription drugs. If her family is already buying drugs for more than that amount, the Galfer on prescription is free.

Be box clever when buying toys for little boys

Recently, Paul McCrea from Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, bought a Majorette Interactive toy garage at Heaton's in Wexford for his grandson's seventh birthday. The box had an illustration of the garage on the front, and on the top was a picture of three or four different sets of small cars with a carrier case for them - a total of 16 or 20 cars.

"Naturally, on purchasing an €80 product I expected that what was illustrated to be contained in the set. To my horror and my grandson's disappointment, all the set contained was four cars," McCrea writes.

He went back to Heaton's to complain where it was pointed out "by a very helpful and reasonable manageress" that there was small print on the bottom panel of the box.

"This did indeed state that there were only four cars in the set. However, it was so small and tucked-away that no reasonable shopper would have consulted same," he says.

McCrea points out that the contents were "completely at variance with what was illustrated on the box" and says that "a warning label should be attached to products stating that cars and cases illustrated on top of the box are not in the set, if not by the manufacturer then by the retailer".

Inflammatory prices really rub it in

In mid September, while on holiday in Spain, a reader got a text message from her sister asking if she could check the price of an anti-inflammatory cream. Her sister said a 30g tube cost around €9 and her husband was getting through a tube and a half a week.

"Imagine my amazement when I went into a pharmacy in Torregano," she writes, "and they produced a 60g tube for €3.12".

She says she bought 12 tubes in two different pharmacies at a total cost of €37.44 - the same volume of the Voleran cream would have cost €108 in Ireland.

"Now that is definitely a bargain - twice the cream for a third of the price. So if you need over-the-counter meds and are in Spain, buy them."

In fact, even if you're not in Spain and are in need of over-the-counter medicines, it might prove cheaper to hop on a plane, go there for the weekend and stock up.