Significant increase in medicine shortages according to survey

Ellen O'Donoghue

More than half of pharmacists have claimed that shortages in medicines have "significantly increased", while 78 per cent still expect the situation to worsen over the next 12 months.

A survey, conducted between March and April by the Irish Pharmacy Union revealed 83 per cent borrow stock from other pharmacies to ensure continuity of care.

Pharmacists and their teams now spend over six hours per week managing shortages, the survey reported.

President of the Irish Pharmacy Union Tom Murray told Newstalk that the situation is serious.

"It’s quite serious for pharmacists, but it’s more serious for patients, because at the end of the day, the patients are the people that count, and in key areas like HRT, the GLP-1 agonists for weight loss and diabetes, and adhd significantly, there are serious shortages," he said.

"There’s approximately 400 medicines commonly used medicines in Ireland that are short at the moment."

Mr Murray also told Newstalk that pharmacists should be given the authority to prescribe an alternative treatment.

"If you go along the lines of HRT, where the patches have been routinely out of stock, a pharmacist could well easily substitute that to some of the gels, but we’re not allowed to without referring back to the practitioner, the general practitioner.

"If we have one penicillin that’s written on a prescription and that penicillin is out of stock, we have to refer the patient back," he said.