Pharmacists filed an urgent application in the Pretoria High Court on Monday challenging the new medicine-price regulations, said three pharmacist organisations.
The pharmacists are challenging both the recommendation on medicine-dispensing fees made by the medicine-pricing committee to the minister of health and the regulations in terms of which it was made.
The application was brought by the Pharmaceutical Society of South Africa, the South African Progressive Pharmacists’ Association and the United South African Pharmacies.
The pharmacists called for the regulations to be declared unlawful and for them to be suspended pending the outcome of their application.
The new medicine-dispensing fees come into effect on January 1.
The pharmacists said the dispensing fees would have ”disastrous implications for both the pharmacy industry and health care consumers” as they would make it uneconomical for ”a majority of pharmacists” to operate.
”The ultimate impact of the regulations will thus be to deny consumers access to medication and health care, particularly in rural areas, which will undermine the government’s national health policy objective,” they said.
The challenge is based on the argument that the dispensing fees are ”not appropriate” and thus contravene the Medicines Act, as they will force pharmacies to dispense medicines at a loss, and that the regulations are an ”unconstitutional infringement of the right to choose and practise a trade, occupation or profession”.
They said the challenge was also being brought in the public interest. — Sapa