Seanad debates

Wednesday, 11 July 2012

Access to Cancer Treatment Bill 2012: Second Stage

 

6:00 am

Photo of David CullinaneDavid Cullinane (Sinn Fein)

That practice should end. The Government laboured this point when it was in opposition but it is one of the sacred cows in the health service that needs to be taken on. That would save money that could be used towards drugs. The blunt instrument of the recruitment embargo leads to unnecessary expenditure on agency workers. The Minister has done some work in this area but much more needs to be done. The chief executive officer of the Health Service Executive, Mr. Cathal Magee, recently acknowledged that its auditing structures are not up to scratch. That has cost us money. We heard in recent days of the incidence of significant fraud at Cork University Hospital, which was only belatedly identified. The Health Information and Quality Authority has an annual budget of some €20 million. The Health Service Executive spends huge amounts of money on communications consultants. We are all agreed that the cost of drugs is far too high. While the Government has gone some way towards encouraging the use of generic medicines, we are still spending far too much in that area. All of these issues require urgent attention. The Government's time would be far better spent in seeking to achieve appreciable savings in those areas where savings can be made, which would free up resources for the provision of drugs and treatments that patients require.

It is a cause of serious concern that the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics, which advises the HSE, has apparently blocked the reimbursement of a number of key drugs, such as ipilimumab, thus preventing their availability across the entire health service. Many people in the health care sector are of the view that the centre's criteria for assessing new drugs have become much more stringent in recent months. Even where medicines are approved for reimbursement, the necessary funding is not being provided to allow them to be prescribed for patients. The pharmaceutical and insurance industries cannot be allowed to hold people to ransom, as happened in the case of ipilimumab.

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