Patients face paying 100% of cost of prescription medicines in Alicante
Sunday, November 6, 2011 @ 2:08 PM
Pharmacists say they need the money they are owed and will vote later on taking the action.
Pharmacies in Alicante want to charge patients for the full price of prescription medicines from next month, with signs in the window explaining that there is no money left for medicaments according to the regional administration.
A group of pharmacists, made up of some 50 professionals in Alicante province, want to approve the idea this evening, and also plan to contract a debt recovery agency in the style of ‘cobrador del frac’ to following the President of the Generalitat, Alberto Fabra, in all the rallies he attends on the election campaign, to try and recover the money owed to them.
They say they have a need for liquidity and are suffering an ‘economic drowning’ as a consequence of the debt of the Health Department.
The Official College of Pharmacists considers the action to be illegal. Their president, Jaime Carbonell, says that patients should not be charged because they are not responsible for what has happened. Two weeks ago the College met and decided to postpone any measures until a bank loan was formalised for the pharmacists collective to cover them until 2014 when the Health Department says it can clear the debt.
A decision from the dissident pharmacists is expected later.
Source: Typically Spanish