Pain relief price hurts
MILLIONS of Australians may have to pay several dollars more for popular pain medications from today, as fallout from the Government’s new prescription-only rule for codeine products begins.
Some of the most popular codeine-containing over-thecounter medicines Panadeine, Nurofen Plus, Panafen Plus, Panadeine Rapid Soluble and Panadeine Extra and Demazin and Codral cold and flu capsules have been withdrawn from sale by pharmaceutical companies as a result of the rule change.
There are still 41 brands of low-dose codeine products available but consumers will need to get a doctor’s prescription to access the pills and they will not be subsidised on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
The pills are now prescription only, so chemists will be able to charge a dispensing fee for supplying the drugs, and that will raise the prices.
The dispensing fee for PBS medicines is about $7 a pack but chemists can decide to set their own dispensing fee for private scripts, some may not charge one at all.
Industry insiders are predicting in the long run all lowdose codeine products could disappear from the market as happened when antihistamines for children aged under two became prescription only.
The nation’s medicines watchdog has made the drugs prescription only because about 100 people a year are killed by overdoses, they are not effective for chronic pain and codeine is addictive.
Many Australians are taking codeine every day and at dangerously high doses of up to 28 pills a day, even though the drug is not recommended for use for longer than three days at a time.
Head of Pain Services at Royal Melbourne Hospital Malcolm Hogg says codeine is not a good pain reliever, the body adapts to it and patients need to take more to get relief.
If taken for extended periods, it can provoke a withdrawal pain problem where not taking the drug is the rea- son for the pain rather than any physical symptom, he says.
People reliant on low-dose over-the-counter codeine products are being told to seek advice from their doctor on better ways to manage their pain.
Combination ibuprofen and paracetamol tablets, still available without a prescription, provide better pain relief than low-dose codeine tablets but they can’t be used by everyone, Dr Hogg says.