List of drugs no longer free under Spanish National Health System

[fifi]

The list of drugs which will no longer be free from 1st September under the Spanish Health system has been published. The article is too long for me to copy and paste a translation on here so anyone that is affected by this can copy the link into http://translate.google.ie/?hl=en&tab=wT and get a reasonable translation.

http://www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-2012-10952

Please read carefully because some medicines are still available free of charge to cancer patients and also patients
suffering from inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome and diverticulosis, and paraplegia portosystemic encephalopathy and a couple of others which are listed at the bottom of the page.

[Voldermort]

Sounds alarming but it is an attempt to force doctors to prescribe generic drugs, with exactly the same composition, rather than the branded names, as they have to save vast amounts of dosh..It amazes me how many people still buy Imodium, instead just ask the chemist for Loperamide. You end up with exactly the same drug but at less than half the price......Hope this helps

[fifi]

Hi Valdemort , I am not sure if it is. I just had a look to see if there was anything  more in the papers about it. Canarias 7 have this to say....

"But despite this exclusion of funding of more than 400 drugs, all of which are included in the list can and should continue to prescribe when the doctor deems appropriate, although the patient will have to pay the full cost."

Do you think that they will offer the cheaper drugs free of charge under the system?

[Voldermort]

I got my info from a mainland source and I could well be wrong, but my understanding was that if the patient wanted the `branded`, it would be prescibed but the patient had to pay for it...either way things keep coming out but with an abscence of clear Government explanations which just makes the situation worse...

[fifi]

I guess we will find out when Patients ask if there is another brand available free of charge.

Thanks Voldemort.