THE IRISH Pharmacy Union (IPU) last night asked its members to resume normal services immediately “in the interests of patient safety”, but said its dispute with Minister for Health Mary Harney was not resolved.
The union’s executive held an emergency meeting with pharmacists in Dublin yesterday to advise them of the reasons for making the decision.
Hundreds of pharmacists had withdrawn from the State drugs schemes on August 1st in protest at cuts in fees and payments of €133 million introduced by the Government.
IPU president Liz Hoctor said the union was urging members to resume normal services to prevent a recurrence of the chaotic scenes of previous days and in light of commitments made by Ms Harney in recent statements.
Ms Hoctor said some of the issues which caused this dispute had not been resolved and warned that further disruption to services was “almost inevitable” if they were not.
“The bottom line is that the cuts which the Minister has forced through will have a very real and detrimental impact on the quality of patient care which community pharmacists can provide,” she said.
“In this dispute I hope it was made clear to people that our ability to continue to provide high levels of service is threatened by the Minister’s actions.
“That is a key point for people to remember long into the future.”
Ms Hoctor said the pharmacists’ action had resulted in progress on some matters.
“The Minister has stated emphatically that she will not seek to remove a cent more than €133 million from the sector on foot of these cuts – and not the €169 million that we feared would follow,” she said
Ms Hoctor said the union would be writing to Ms Harney setting out its proposals on how the future relationship between the parties should be conducted.
The IPU move was welcomed last night by Ms Harney and the Health Service Executive (HSE).
A HSE spokeswoman said the decision by the union to resume normal services was very welcome and it was important that patient safety was put to the fore in any decision made.
