Joseph A. Muscat, Ta' Xbiex
Reimbursement for free medicines
The lack of interest said to have been shown by the Minister for Social Policy in a request for a meeting made by the Health-Care Business Section of the Chamber of Commerce Enterprise and Industry, to discuss proposals regarding revision of the Pharmacy of Your Choice Scheme, should come as no surprise.
These "proposals" as the chairman of the section so disingenuously explains, would make the patient pay for his or her free medicines who in turn would be reimbursed by the government.
Not so far away in a back page article of the same issue (October 16) entitled The Government's Late Payments, the correspondent goes to some length to show that in spite of the EU Directive 2000/35 which came into force in 2002, and was adopted by Malta by Legal Notice 233 of 2005, the Malta government remains non-compliant and reluctant to make timely payment to businesses supplying goods.
It cites as an example "importers of medicines who are owed millions of euro for goods supplied to the Health Department".
It would then seem that in one adroit move the delay and hassle linked with being reimbursed by the government would be transferred from a handful of importers to a population of impoverished pensioners and invalids; the same whose waiting at hospital pharmacies the government is attempting to remedy, as from the frying pan into the fire.
The Association of Pensioners should have something to say on the matter.
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Janet Bayes
Oct 21st 2009, 08:20
My question would be this - - why does the cost of one type of medication vary, by as much as 50 euros, (doubling the cost) in a time span of just 3 weeks??
Emanuel Cilia Debono
Oct 20th 2009, 10:45
Professor Muscat made a very valid point.
The recommendations of the Chamber of Commerce are fraught with adverse social implications. Government needs to be very careful before committing itself to implement the proposals .
The Chamber's recommendations imply the transfer of the burden for late payments to the patients ( many of whom live at or below the poverty line and include retired pensioners).
The Chamber makes no reference to the high cost of medicines that makes the burden which would be shouldered by patients more onerous than one should expect on a rational market. Prices of medicines in Malta need to be carefully monitored by the market regulators with the help of the Health Department.
What makes the prices of medicines so anomalous, now that Malta forms part of the European market.?