Madam – The imposition of a tax on medical card patients receiving prescribed medication is fundamentally unfair. The whole idea of the medical card system is that it grants free medical care to those who require it. I find it interesting that Dr Niall Cawley GP (March 19th) should seek to penalise the patient. Perhaps a proper medication review incorporating the patient’s usage requirements would have been more appropriate in the circumstances.
I wonder if Dr Cawley would be quite as enthusiastic about the tax were he obliged to collect it himself. An interesting anomaly in the system is that patients receiving medication from dispensing doctors are not required to pay the tax, while patients receiving medication from dispensing pharmacists must pay it. Go figure!
In relation to the comments by Richard J O’Rourke, pharmacist (March 19th), there is one point on which we agree – his views may not be shared by other pharmacists. The fact that there is little resistance to the tax does not mean that it is right. Irish people have shown themselves to be remarkably stoic in the face of inequities and unfairness in recent times.
One should not tax the vulnerable just because it is easy to do so. Mr O’Rourke obviously does not mind the role of unpaid tax collector eating into his contact time with patients – as a practising pharmacist, I do. Mr O’Rourke must not have the horrible administrative experience of trying to collect this prescription tax from vulnerable patients in nursing homes, residential care units and other institutions for whom no exception has been made.
It is right and proper that we should seek to minimise waste in prescribing and medication usage. But don’t penalise the patient! – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Your correspondent, Dr Niall Cawley (March 19th) recounts the tale of the woman with the unused prescription medication in her drawer and informs us that she only told the prescribing doctor to cancel the prescription upon the introduction of the 50c charge.
Dr Cawley goes on to suggest that this incident (and, presumably, others like it) would justify the retention of the prescription charge.
Wouldn’t it be simpler if doctors simply stop prescribing unnecessary medication for their patients? – Yours, etc,
