State-funded hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for women will finally begin on June 1, nearly six months after it was originally scheduled to launch, Health Minister Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has announced.
The scheme, which was unveiled as part of last October’s budget and initially promised for January 1, will provide patients with access to HRT products and medicines at no charge, including coverage of dispensing fees.
“I have written to all community pharmacies today asking that they support and facilitate the women in their communities to access State-funded HRT products and medicines,” Carroll MacNeill said in her announcement.
According to The Irish Examiner, to support the program’s implementation, the minister has committed to paying participating pharmacies a €5 dispensing fee per HRT medicine or product dispensed to eligible patients, including those under existing GMS/DPS schemes. Additionally, each participating pharmacy will receive a one-time grant of €1,000.
The June 1 commencement date has been set to allow pharmacies adequate time to prepare for the scheme’s launch. The HSE is scheduled to notify all community pharmacies about reimbursement arrangements, participation processes, and the mechanism for receiving the €1,000 grant on Tuesday.
The Department of Health also announced that an information campaign will begin in the coming days to provide patients with further details about the program. Prescription charges for medical card holders related to HRT medicines and products on the reimbursement list will also be abolished.
Despite these developments, the Department expressed regret that an implementation agreement could not be reached with the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU), despite months of engagement. The Department outlined two options that had been offered to the IPU: either the €5 dispensing fee and €1,000 grant, or alternatively a €3,000 one-time grant to each participating pharmacy with existing dispensing fee arrangements continuing. Neither option led to an agreement.
As recently as late April, pharmacists had reported that they still lacked a complete list of medications to be covered under the scheme—information critically needed due to shortages of some HRT products that often require women to use alternatives to their prescribed medications. The IPU had also noted the absence of a tested IT system for recording scheme usage and facilitating state payments to individual pharmacies.