| jambutty |
09-03-2008 12:39 |
Re: New prescription charges.
It all boils down to a tax on the sick. And to add insult to injury, as someone has already mentioned, some prescribed medicines can be bought over the counter for far less.
Some ten years ago my doctor would prescribe 3 months worth of the ‘keep my heart going etc.’ medicines because at the time I had to pay and because one of the items was simple Aspirin he told me to buy it over the counter. Then my local chemist complained to my doctor and he prescribed them on a monthly basis and included the Aspirin. I complained to the General Medical Council and was told that there is no limit on for how long medicines can be prescribed on a prescription and if I wanted to buy the Aspirin that was up to me. My doctor compromised with a two monthly basis and I always crossed off the Aspirin. My local chemist still complained and refused to service the prescription because I had crossed an item off.
The end result was that my GREEDY local chemist lost my custom and I used a different one who was quite happy to sell me the Aspirin over the counter but I had to stop crossing it off the prescription list. Hmmmmm!
The chemist that I use today isn’t as fussy although the names of the medicines change from one generic version to another almost every time.
In spite of me asking him on several occasions my doctor still insists on including Aspirin on the prescription. Is there an unspoken agreement between some doctors and some chemists? It makes me wonder.
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