TAOISEACH URGES PHARMACISTS NOT TO PUNISH RECOVERING ADDICTS

Pharmacists should not make recovering drug addicts suffer in their
dispute over fees with the Health Service Executive, the Taoiseach
told the Dail today.

More than 140 Dublin chemists pulled out of the HSE's methadone
supply scheme last Monday in a row over a new drug payment structure.

Bertie Ahern said the dispute had nothing to do with drug addicts and
they should not be suffering as a result of the action.

"There is no justification whatever for bringing recovering drug
addicts into a dispute, no matter whether it is called a commercial
dispute or an industrial relations dispute," He said.

"The dispute has nothing to do with people who are doing their best
to recover from an addiction problem."

"The action of 140 pharmacists to withdraw services from
approximately 3,000 methadone patients is totally wrong and the same
applies to threats to withdraw from dispensing drugs to medical card holders.

"The drug addicts have nothing to do with the dispute in which the
pharmacists are engaged and it is a very unfair way of fighting their cause."

The HSE urged pharmacists to resume services to methadone patients
and said it could not negotiate fees with the IPU as this would be in
breach of competition law.

The HSE says the new regime will cut the state's drugs bill by E100m
next year but pharmacists say it will result in them having to
dispense medicine to public patients at a loss and put their
businesses at risk.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore raised the issue in the Dail and said
that extremely vulnerable people such as recovering addicts should
not be allowed to be victimised in the dispute.

He asked how the Competition Act was blocking negotiations with the
Irish Pharmaceutical Union when it had not stopped talks on fees with
the Bar Council, the Law Society, the Dental Association and the Vets
Association.

Mr Gilmore also said that the HSE arrangements will also put small
independent pharmacies at risk.

"In time to come, if people are given a prescription from their
doctor but there is no local pharmacy, it will mean they have to
travel to the nearest big town or city for the prescription to be
dispensed at one of the big pharmacy chains."

"It is not right that some of the most vulnerable people in society
are made a target and used in a dispute such as this to the extent
that their needs and rights are seriously put at risk."

He called for a return to dispensing methadone in community pharmacies.