asked the Minister for Health if he is aware that patients holding medical cards, who are treated by a private doctor and who are given a prescription for drugs, find when they go to the dispensary doctor that he refuses the drug unless they give up their private doctor and become his patients; and, if so, what action he proposes to take to enable such patients to get their drugs at dispensaries without change of doctor.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Supply of Drugs.
43.
Mr. O'Malley
There is no obligation on a district medical officer to issue medicines and drugs on the prescription of another practitioner and consequently he cannot be compelled to do so. It is not possible, therefore, to make arrangements for the supply of medicines to such persons through dispensaries, except in the larger urban areas where dispensary pharmacists are employed by the health authorities. Some authorities have met this difficulty, where it has arisen, by arranging for the supply of the prescribed items through the pharmacists employed at county clinics or county hospitals.
I presume that the Deputy is primarily concerned with the Galway area. In the case of eligible persons resident in any of the four Galway city dispensary districts, who do not avail themselves of the services of the district medical officers, my information is that they can all have prescriptions filled at the pharmacy in the county clinic and that, pending the implementation of the proposals in the White Paper on the Health Services for the introduction of "choice of doctor," the health authority are considering what steps they could take to meet cases arising in other parts of the country.
Would it not meet the need in cases like this to arrange for the patients to have their prescriptions dispensed by the local chemist?
Mr. O'Malley
The Deputy will appreciate these people are the holders of medical cards and, notwithstanding that, they opt to go to the private practitioner.
They want a choice of doctor.
Mr. O'Malley
Exactly, but the suggestion that the prescriptions be dispensed at the local chemist's shop is a matter specifically mentioned and it is our intention to carry it out, as stated in the White Paper.
They must wait for at least two years.