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THE INTRODUCTION OF free Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) products for women experiencing symptoms of menopause from this month has been delayed, with pharmacists unclear when the scheme will be rolled out.
As part of Budget 2025, outgoing Health Minister Stephen Donnelly announced that €20 million was being made available from January 2025 for the provision of state-funded HRT products.
HRT is free for holders of medical cards but otherwise can cost in the region of €30 to €70 a month.
Under the new scheme, the products would be free of charge, but women who have a prescription from their doctor would still have to pay for their GP visit and dispensing fee to the pharmacist.
Speaking about the scheme in October, Donnelly said he had two options available.
“One was that we would cover all costs but if we did that we would not be able to make it available to all women. The full cost of the medicine be covered.
“I listened to a lot of people about this and universally what I heard back was make it available to everyone,” said the minister.
He said pharmacists will no doubt want to charge an administrative or prescription fee, stating that pharmacists get their profit margin from the product that they sell.
“We’re essentially making the product free,” he said.
However, the Irish Pharmacy Union (ICU) has said that it has yet to receive details on how the scheme will be implemented from the Department of Health.
“In recent weeks we have written to the Department of Health four times and held two formal meetings seeking clarity on how the scheme is proposed to operate,” the ICU told The Journal in a statement.
“We have still not received any clarity on this and how to advise patients accordingly.”
The ICU said it has submitted a proposal to address these issues through an Integrated Women’s Health Plan, “which we believe treats all women with equitable access to hormone treatment and does not differentiate based on age”.
The lack of clarity means that the suggested timeline in the budgetary announcement has not been met.
The IPU said it remains committed to working with the Department of Health and the HSE to find “a workable, implementable scheme to be able to provide this women’s health initiative”.
In a statement to The Journal, the HSE said it is engaging with the Department of Health and the IPU on the “practical implementation” of the scheme.
The health service said: “The goal is to introduce this measure as soon as possible.”
Social Democrats TD Sinéad Gibney said the delay is “a slap in the face for the thousands of women on HRT who had been expecting to see a reduction in their medical expenses from the start of 2025″.
“The delay has also been met with deep frustration by pharmacists around the country, many of whom had expressed concern at the Department’s lack of preparedness for the roll out of this scheme,” Gibney said.
“Despite the Minister describing State-funded HRT as an important milestone in the ongoing evolution of women’s healthcare in Ireland, it now appears that the previous government overpromised and underdelivered on this issue.”
She called on the Department of Health to “immediately explain” the reasons for the “unacceptable delay” and outline what steps need to be taken to get the scheme up and running.
“Consideration should also be given to reimbursing women for any HRT costs they incur between now and the eventual introduction of the initiative,” she added.
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Colonial imperialist terrorists doing what they do!
@joe moody: Protecting people from terrorists that planted bombs in Shops , Pubs , Restaurants, Hotels . They didn’t care who they killed .
@Jack Moss: Balkymurphy massacre, Derry Bloody Sunday hasn’t really covered your comrades in arms in Glory. Don’t try to come here and claim some sort of moral high ground while defending British forces in Ireland or rest of world. Your national is currently supplying the means of genocide in Palestine.
@Jack Moss: how is that protecting people? It could’ve damaged the peace process and cost people their lives
@North Phone Bowe: Your hero McGuinness and his Derry brigade murdered 51 innocent from the Derry area . 28 of them Catholics . People like Catholic teen Kathleen Feeney shot through the head by the IRA . Spares us your crocodile tears for those killed on Bloody Sunday .
@Jack Moss: shankill butchers , loyalist collusion…etc etc.. U LOL crew only see one side always and it’s orange
@Pork Hunt: Nobody defends/ justifies the murders committed by loyalist terrorists though. It’s only Provo supporters who seem to forget that the Provos murdered more Catholics than the British Army during the Troubles. Revisionism is good business these days. I don’t forget the poll carried out at the end of the Troubles that showed both Catholics and Protestants in the high 80s% say there was no justification for the terrorism committed in their name.
@honey badger: it’s not surprising to see you in support of a brutal apartheid occupying force.
Both the IRA and Hamas have done heinous things, for sure but both of them are a result of unjust suppression and disenfranchisement of people, illegally. Neither of them grew in a vacuum.
If you brutally push people down, they will rise up with whatever means they have at their disposal. I’ve no doubt that Palestinians would love to face Israel down with a conventional army but Israel has seen to it that that can’t happen. You reap what you sow.
@Soundy Sound: Lovely word salad and whataboutery. What “unjust suppression, disenfranchisement, illegally” were the Catholic victims of their supposed defenders guilty of? Strangely, Israel/ Hamas has/ had zero to do with it.
@Pork Hunt: The Shankill butchers murder 9 Protestants .
@Soundy Sound: They didn’t rising up . The majority of Catholics were supporting non violent organisations like the civil rights movement and John Humes SDLP . The IRA did not represent the Catholic population of NI . The 26 counties was a 98 percent RC state. It political system was made up of Republican parties . 40 thousand Protestant fled the 26 counties from intimidation and murder during the war of independence. The Protestant population fell to 3 percent. All this is long forgotten. Ireland was not partition in 1921 . The UK was partition . Irish Nats gain 26 counties the UK lost 26 counties. The UK people and unionists just accepted it and move on . Violence has always been the first choice for republican organisations . They always see themselves as the victims in history.
@honey badger: There is literally no point in arguing with someone who’s starting point is claiming that the nationalist population in Northern Ireland were not discriminated against by the ruling system.
@Jack Moss: protected nobody, and in this instance, actively pushed propaganda that could have caused serious damage to a fragile peace process.
Actual state-sponsored terrorism from so called “security forces”
@Alan Roddy: The security forces had a 99 percent arresting rate . Over 25000 republicans were arrested and prosecuted for terrorism and criminality . Less then 200 were killed by the security forces over 25 yrs of the troubles . 3500 people were killed almost half of those were the security forces . In 69 NI was facing an all out civil war . The only thing that stop it going over the edge was the security forces . Over a 100 thousand people died in the three yr civil war in Bosnia . 3500 died in 26 yrs in NI . If it wasn’t for the security forces and emergency services nurses , doctors , paramedics, fire fighters that all stood in the face of terrorism the IRA would have succeeded in murdering tens of thousands more .
@Soundy Sound: What you mean to say is you can’t comfortably justify why the Provos murdered more Catholics than the British Army. The only place you heard there was no discrimination was in your own head. It’s an odd thing to throw out there. Discrimination was so bad that the provos had to kill more of their own people than the British Army.
RUC might’ve changed their name, but didn’t change their anti-Irish senior personnel.
@Uí Braonáin: If I remember rightly if you got a train from Dublin to Belfast the train was often stop before crossing the border on the recommendation from the RUC north of the border . People were put onto buses for their own safety to travel the rest of the journey because the IRA was constantly blowing up the rail line . They blew it 26 times in six months . Trains carrying people from the south came within minutes of being derailed .
British spy planes hover over Gaza daily passing information to Israel on which tent full of innocent defenceless women and children to blow up next
@Kevin O Brien: Are these the same spy planes that are collecting evidence of war crimes etc?
@Kevin O Brien: Ah! Come on now Kevin!!
@Gary Kearney: Same accuracy
Any article on the cop saying no iPas are unvetted , which he clarifies as fingerprinted as identified. Kids in transition year get more vetting for work experience. No comment from the cop on forced deportation , it’s just part of the process. What a joke.
It was a common tactic of the IRA to leave secondary devices to kill the people that attempted to help the injured . The Claudy bombings consisted of three car bombs left on a public street. Car bomb two and three were timed to go off a few minutes after the first bomb detonated . There purpose was to kill the people that ran out onto the street to help the injured of the first bomb . 9 died 6 of them Catholic .
@Jack Moss: Why do you keep bringing religion into it.
@Daniel Roche: People are living in some fairytale land that the IRA were defenders of Catholics which is untrue.
@Jack Moss:
SF RA did not give a dam about the Irish. It was all about a one Island communist sithole state.
Pikes in the Thatch.
@Róisín Guffpuffin:
Pub in Rathkeel??
have your say