Standing before a huge table piled high with a variety of medicinal products that will soon go up in smoke, Health Minister Joe Cassar noted that even when distributed free, medicine still cost taxpayers money.
Hundreds of boxes of 80 different types of medicine to treat conditions ranging from diabetes to heart disease and cholesterol were on display before being destroyed.
The batch, worth about €10,000, were taken to the health authorities by people who thought they could be redistributed to other patients. However, it was practice to destroy such products because the authorities could not establish how they were stored, Dr Cassar said.
The batch in question represents only part of the stock handed over to authorities in three months. It is thought that this only represents a fraction of unused medicine stockpiled unnecessarily by people at home .
With the government spending almost €69 million a year on medicine – an average of €170 per person – the public had to act responsibly and avoid waste, Dr Cassar said.
The number of free medicinal products available on the national health service increased to 1,334 after the list of chronic illnesses was increased to 79 from 38 earlier this year.
The Pharmacy of Your Choice scheme cost the government €1 million a month to run. More than 670,000 people made use of this service, available from 159 pharmacies in 57 localities.
Waste was mainly the result of a common misconception about the Schedule V card – also known as karta safra (yellow card) – entitling people to free medicine, Dr Cassar said.
“The entitlement lists a chronic condition and is not tied to the medicine. The prescription might change and a medicine is removed from the patient’s schedule and replaced by another. This doesn’t mean they will be removed from the schedule of listed conditions,” he explained.
He urged patients to be careful when handling medicine. They should not to put one medication in the packet of another. Medicine must be stored properly and patients have to stick to the dosage and frequency prescribed by the doctor.
Patients on long-term medication, such as those with high blood pressure, should also review their dosage with their doctor, Dr Cassar advised.