Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very close to this issue at the moment, as I myself am undergoing chemotherapy. During the months that I have been attending the clinic, I have been asked by a number of medical oncologists what is going on: ‘Why is this being delayed? Are they still going on with it?’ ‘Are our patients going to suffer?’ As far as community pharmacists in rural areas are concerned, this is not waste. But who is going to have to pay for the extra bit of the drug that cannot be used? As you heard Senator Cormann say, pharmacists are not supposed to use it. I asked the following question on notice of the department at budget estimates:

Is the department aware of the effect on pharmacists if the government pays for only the amount of chemotherapy used?  Eg, if only ¾ of a vial is used the pharmacists would be out of pocket for ¼ of a vial. Therefore a pharmacist could be out of pocket by up to $640 for a drug such as Herceptin?

The answer was:

This measure is designed to encourage the efficient use of chemotherapy medicines.

I take absolute umbrage at this, because I have watched these medicines being drawn up and the way they are prepared in the clinic that I attend, and these people are very, very careful; as far as efficiency goes, they do the best they possibly can. I think it is very poor of the government to criticise these health professionals who are doing their best for a number of very vulnerable people in the community.

The clinic I attend has 70 patients in the morning. Those people work very hard and make sure they do absolutely the right thing. Who is going to pay for the gap if the patient no longer needs to use a full phial because their weight has reduced, which often happens with cancer treatment? What if they now only need to use three-quarters of a phial? That is the problem. Is it going to be passed on to the patient or is it going to be the pharmacist who is going to have to pay for it, like I talked about in country areas?

I listened to the minister’s answers today. I was once again in the midwifery inquiry asking when this is going to happen. The responses I got were: ‘briefly’, ‘in the near future’ and ‘shortly’. We really do want to know. These regulations were going to start on 1 September, but we are still having ongoing consultation with stakeholders. Just how much consultation can one have? Looking back at my other questions on notice, I see, ‘The department has undertaken extensive stakeholder consultation.’ I am getting fed up with hearing day after day at every inquiry, ‘We’re doing extensive consultation.’ When you ask who the stakeholders are they cannot be named. They say, ‘We are reviewing the treatment and looking at patient safety.’ Surely you looked at patient safety at the start.

Somehow we have to get past this ‘briefly’ and ‘in the near future’ and having policy made on the run with nothing to back it up. This should be resolved. For goodness sake, I am sure that savings can be found somewhere else rather than hitting this very vulnerable area of the community.