Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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358. To ask the Minister for Health if the eye medication MacuShield has been withdrawn from medical card patients; the reason for its withdrawal; and if a substitute medication will be made available to medical card patients. [33581/16]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The HSE has advised that Macushield products have never been made available to all persons with medical card eligibility; however, Macushield and similar products were historically available to medical card holders in many areas under Discretionary Hardship Arrangements.

In developing a national framework for the administration of Discretionary Hardship Arrangements, the HSE's Medicines Management Programme (MMP) was asked to review the available therapeutic evidence for supporting reimbursement of Macushield and similar products. The MMP report supported the view of the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics that the evidence for dietary carotenoids for the prevention of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is inconclusive, and the MMP therefore does not recommend that products containing these preparations be reimbursed under any community drug scheme.

In light of the MMP's published report, the HSE decided to cease reimbursement support for these dietary supplement products. The MMP report is available at:www.hse.ie/eng/about/Who/clinical/natclinprog/medicinemanagementprogramme/yourmedicines/Evaluation_Reports/.

As the other issues raised by the Deputy are operational and service matters, they have been referred to the HSE for reply to the Deputy.