Harm Reduction Australia has called on health minister Greg Hunt to immediately impose a moratorium on "potentially unlawful and unenforceable" fees charged patients to access PBS-listed medicines for opiate dependence.
The group's co-founder Annie Madden AO said the uncapped and unregulated fees charged patients in community pharmacy must be immediately replaced with access to the PBS co-payment and safety net system.
Significant doubts have emerged over the lawfulness and enforceability of the Opiate Dependence Treatment Progam (ODTP).
The ODTP reimburses medicines through the PBS but patients are denied access to the protection of PBS co-payments and the safety-net. Yet it is not governed by any legislative instrument and has never been scrutinised by parliament.
Ms Madden said, “HRA has long argued that these private dispensing fees, that can amount to $50-$200 per month, are unfair and a significant barrier to accessing treatment.
"To learn that the Government’s on-going denial of access to the normal operations of the PBS co-payment and safety net system is likely to be unlawful demands immediate action.
"Community pharmacists and other dispensers have been put in the position of knowing that every private fee they charge someone accessing the ODT Program and every denial of their access to the PBS co-payment and safety net system is likely to be legally invalid as the removal of these patient rights and protections has not been ratified by the Australian Parliament.
"This is unacceptable for pharmacies and other dispensers of ODT Program medicines. It is incredibly unjust for the tens of thousands of patients walking into a pharmacy or clinic today to continue to be denied the same access to PBS listed medicines as everyone else.”
Ms Madden said HRA is calling for three actions - an immediate moratorium on the collection of any private dispensing fees from people accessing the ODTP, immediate patient access to the PBS co-payment and safety net systems and a permanent solution to this "untenable situation".
Greens Senator Rachel Siewert, who has been a longstanding critic of the ODTP arrangements, told BioPharmaDispatch she backed HRA calls for an immediate moratorium.
Ms Madden continued, "The community would not accept a cancer patient or diabetic being asked to hand over at least $50 a week to access their PBS-funded medicines. They would be even more concerned to learn patients were being charged the fee without any legally enforceable right from Parliament to do so.”
