{"id":625651,"date":"2025-12-11T05:40:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T05:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/625651\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T05:40:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T05:40:17","slug":"patients-face-e20-charge-for-blister-pack-medication-previously-covered-by-state-says-doherty-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/625651\/","title":{"rendered":"Patients face \u20ac20 charge for blister pack medication previously covered by State, says Doherty \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pharmacists could be charging patients \u20ac20 to dispense medication in blister packs from January, a charge previously covered by the State, the D\u00e1il<\/a> has heard.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> finance spokesman Pearse Doherty<\/a> said thousands of people with conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer\u2019s depend on tablet blister packs to help manage their medication. <\/p>\n

He also said people with disabilities are affected and under real pressure with the cost of living<\/a>. \u201cThe packs help them make sure that they take the right dosage and at the right time of day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The non-reusable blister packs store medication in \u201cbubbles\u201d, with a bubble each for tablets taken at different times of the day, and for each day of the month. Pharmacists have written to patients proposing to charge \u20ac20 to dispense blister packs from the beginning of January.<\/p>\n

Mr Doherty claimed the cost of dispensing blister packs has been paid by the State for decades but vulnerable patients \u201cwill be hit by fee charges of up to \u20ac50 a month, in some cases\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a bad decision at any time, but you make this cruel choice during a cost-of-living crisis, when every euro is precious to people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> said \u201cwe will go back and discuss this with the HSE<\/a>\u201d but it was never agreed the State should pay.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure there should be a fee attached for this at all \u2013 or that the State should pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Doherty said his phone has been \u201chopping\u201d with very worried and angry people about the matter. <\/p>\n

A man in his late 70s, whose wife has dementia told the TD he would find it very hard to manage her medication without a blister pack. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t know where they\u2019re going to find the extra money to pay for them. He says they\u2019re literally down to the last euro every couple of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like you can\u2019t stop yourself from making life harder for people,\u201d he told the Taoiseach.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re putting huge stress on elderly people during the Christmas period, when they know now that they\u2019re going to have to face these charges come January.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Martin said the State never agreed to pay for \u201cmonitored dosing systems\u201d, which are used where it would be unsafe for a patient to have all medication in one supply.<\/p>\n

He hit out at Mr Doherty and said he wants the Government to pay for everything. Then \u201cinvariably you come in another day and question the Government about costs getting out of control\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government will interrogate this again, with the HSE and others. We will go back and discuss this with the HSE, and there will be joint discussions with the pharmacy union.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pharmacists could be charging patients \u20ac20 to dispense medication in blister packs from January, a charge previously covered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4315],"tags":[487,73439,105,1818,4326,681,194211,11528,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-625651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-cost-of-living","9":"tag-dail-eireann","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-health-service-executive-hse","12":"tag-medication","13":"tag-micheal-martin","14":"tag-pearse-doherty","15":"tag-sinn-fein","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115699333675694540","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}