‘IT’S NOT AN ISSUE OF MONEY BUT ONE OF PATIENT SAFETY’
THE Government isn’t for turning on the Versatis patches with An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar stating it wasn’t a costs issue but one of patient safety.
The matter has dominated popular RTE Radio Show Liveline all week but Health Minister Simon Harris said public health policy would not made on foot of radio shows.
The Taoiseach has defended the Health Service Executive’s decision to restrict Versatis patches.
He told the Dáil that a lot of people had contacted him about the issue and he discussed the matter with the Minister for Health last week. He explained that the patches are licensed for adults who have shingles.
However, he said over the last number of years, doctors have been prescribing it for uses for which it is not licensed.
Mr Varadkar said the medication is an anaesthetic and there are long-term side-effects from anaesthetics.
“There are no problems if GPs are prescribing it for what it’s licenced for,” he said.
He said it was not a matter of money, but a matter of patient safety. He added the patch was being prescribed ten times more than it is prescribed in the UK.
“There’s something wrong that medication is being used ten times as much as it is across the water,” he said.
Mr Varadkar said the HSE decision was the right one from a patient safety perspective.
More than 2,300 patients have now been approved for the Versatis plaster under the drug schemes, Jim Daly, Minister of State at the Department of Health, told the Seanad.
Around 1,500 post-shingles patients have been approved, as well as 850 approved for use other than post-shingles pain, based on the clinical case made by their GP.
Mr Daly said that the turnaround time for applications is three working days and for appeals it is five days.
He said that nearly two thirds of appeals for non-shingles patients have been granted on the basis of the clinical case made by the patient’s GP.
The plasters have been covered under community drugs schemes since 2010.
A new reimbursement system was introduced by the HSE from last September.
The HSE has been accused of brining about changes to the scheme without fair warning to patients.
The National Association of General Practitioners says a unilateral abrupt withdrawal of this medication has had unintended consequences that has undoubtedly affected patients’ wellbeing.