Pharmacy Daily | PBS meds unaffordable

INCREASES to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) general co-payment are part of a "dangerous trend" making critical medicines unaffordable for Australians, Pharmacy Guild of Australia National President, Professor Trent Twomey, warns.

With the PBS general co-payment on track to hit $50 per script by 2030, Twomey said medications for a range of chronic health conditions, alongside smoking cessation treatments and long-acting contraception were stretching middle-income households' budgets.

The Guild reported that a growing number of patients are asking pharmacists which of the medications prescribed by their GP can be skipped to avoid having to pay the PBS co-payment.

"This is a dangerous trend, as prescribed medications are designed to work together to preserve the health and ultimately save the lives of the patients who need them," Twomey said.

"Pharmacists are worried that there will be more preventable ill-health and even deaths as people are increasingly finding themselves having to choose between buying the medicines they need and other essential items like rent, groceries and petrol."

With a Federal Election due to be called in the coming months, research conducted on behalf of the Guild in a number of marginal electorates, found that 31% of middle-income households have found it difficult to afford medicines on the PBS at the current $42.50 general co-payment, with 13% of people reporting that they had gone without prescribed medicines because of their cost.

The Guild noted that modelling from the University of Technology Sydney has found that hospitalisations and loss of productivity due to a failure to take medicines as instructed by medical professionals could cost the federal budget $10.4 billion in a year for hypertension, dyslipidemia and depression conditions alone.