South African pharmacies have lashed out at Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, saying comments she made about the government meeting the retail pharmacy industry over the controversial dispensing law were misleading.
Writing on the African National Congress’s website at the weekend, Tshabalala-Msimang said the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry had ”taken a more constructive approach” by engaging with the government and presenting the necessary data to support their argument.
However, the chairperson of United South African Pharmacies (USAP), Julian Solomon, said on Monday that over the past months and weeks, they had sent numerous requests for such meetings to the minister and the Department of Health, and the new director-general of Health.
”We have not had a single acknowledgement of receipt to our many requests,” said Solomon.
In December, the Supreme Court of Appeal declared the law that caps the dispensing fee at R26 invalid but the department and pharmacists disagree on which law is currently in force.
The Health Department believes that because it has been given a date by the Constitutional Court to ask for permission to appeal the appeal court’s decision, the invalid law becomes resuscitated.
The department has asked the public to blow the whistle on pharmacists who charge fees outside of that law.
The USAP also expressed concern over the minister’s statements that some pharmacy groups were ”fleecing” medical aids and causing its members to use up their benefits.
He said: ”This is quite simply not true. A number of medical aids have refused to reimburse patients for the administration or survival fee which pharmacies have been charging in a desperate effort to cover their dispensary costs.
”That fee has had to come directly out of the patient’s pocket. The net result has been that many medical aids have been making huge cash savings — the difference between the old price of medication versus the cost post the introduction of the regulations — which they have chosen to bank rather than pass on to the patient,” Solomon said.
Solomon also questioned whether the department was developing a restructured proposal as an alternative to the current disputed dispensing fee, without consulting them.
However, the department flatly denied the charge.
”The current regulations are workable and there are many pharmacies that are successfully implementing them including Dis-chem, Pick ‘n Pay Hypermarket Pharmacies, Checker/Shoprite Medi-rite Pharmacies, Van Heerden Pharmacies Group and other individually owned pharmacies,” health ministry spokesperson Sibani Mngadi said in a statement.
”There are no attempts within the Department of Health to change the medicine pricing regulations, including the dispensing fee of 26%/R26, and these regulations are currently effective.
”It is unfortunate that .. Solomon has resorted to rumour-mongering in order to create unnecessary uncertainty about the status of the government’s medicine regulations,” Mngadi said. – Sapa