THE Irish Pharmaceutical Union has defended the 50 per cent mark up its members receive on (two schemes operated by the General Medical Services Board.
The union, which represents pharmacists in the Republic, stressed, however, that there is no mark up on the largest scheme operated by the board, the medical card scheme.
The IPU was reacting to comments by members of the Dail Committee of Public Accounts this week who described the mark up as outrageous.
At a meeting the committee looked at a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General which showed that pharmacists get a dispensing fee, the drug cost and a 50 per cent mark up on the Long Term Illness (LTI) and Drugs Costs Subsidisation Scheme (DCSS) schemes. This amounted to £31,754,104 in pharmacists' fees in 1994. The medical card scheme cost about £150 million in 1994 including fees of approximately £30 million for pharmacists.
Mr Padraic Staunton, of the IPU, said that in the medical card scheme pharmacists get a fee of £1.40 on a medical card prescription irrespective of its cost, plus 15 pence for labelling and packaging. The service is provided at a very low margin, he added. There was no mark up and when a pharmacist supplies the item it takes up to two months to get paid.
"This is the bitter part of the pill we have to swallow," said Mr Staunton, chairman of the union's contracts committee which negotiates fees with the Department of Health. Pharmacists generally see the LTI and the DCSS schemes as the "balance" to the medical card scheme.
The pharmacists' 50 per cent mark up was their profit margin and they were entitled to it, Mr Staunton said, adding that profit is not a dirty word. Those on the LTI and DCSS schemes were essentially private patients, and the State was assisting those patients through the pharmacist.
The DCSS applies to people who have a long term requirement for prescription medicine but who do not qualify for a medical card. Under this scheme the patient pays the first £32 of the cost and the pharmacist is reimbursed.