Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will get the Deputy a detailed note to ensure this information is correct. My understanding is that once a woman has a prescription from her obstetrician that the repeat prescriptions can then be filled by the GP. Under the scheme introduced this year, the product is provided completely free of charge. I will, however, get the Deputy a detailed note just in case there are some nuances involved.

What we should be doing now is looking to the company. Under the Health Act 2013, the onus is on the company to apply to the HSE to have a new medicine added to the reimbursement list. That would, in fact, solve this problem. Cariban would then be a licensed product and it would fall within the normal reimbursement scheme, which would then make it very easy for any GP to prescribe. GPs would have the comfort of knowing that this was a licensed product, with all the various clinical checks and governance associated with that. Obviously, we cannot compel the company to do this. Anecdotally, I am also hearing that Cariban is much more expensive here than it is in some other countries. If the company was to apply to have this product licensed and added to the reimbursement scheme, then the HSE would be able to negotiate, I would imagine, a much more competitive price to facilitate making it more widely available again.

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