ALL regional health authorities across Spain will be required to charge for medication dispensed to outpatients in hospitals from this month onwards after being given a three-month stay of grace.
Whilst the requisite for payment towards hospital drugs was confirmed on October 1, Spain's 17 autonomously-governed regions were given until January 2014 to put a system in place to allow this to happen.
It will affect anyone who has regular hospital consultation appointments for cancer, eczema, hepatitis, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV and AIDS, degenerative conditions, or who has had a transplant.
Certain types of drug used to treat these patients are sold via the hospital dispensary because they are rare and expensive, and not readily available at mainstream high-street pharmacies.
Now, anyone prescribed these during their outpatient appointments will have to pay up to 10 per cent of the recommended retail price, capped at 4.26 euros.
In October when the law was changed, the maximum payable was 4.20 euros, but it has now been increased in line with inflation.
A total of 43 types of drug, sold under 157 brand names, are affected.
Treatment or drugs administered in hospital by nurses or doctors during in-patient or outpatient appointments are not affected, meaning cancer patients who attend regularly for chemotherapy do not have to pay for the medication supplied during their sessions.
In-patients do not have to pay for drugs given during their hospital stay.
Where a patient has several different types of medication dispensed by the hospital pharmacy and regular outpatient appointments, the cost can mount up considerably and, with so many residents surviving only on the 425-euro-a-month unemployment subsidy, they have to make a choice between paying their rent or mortgage and electricity bills or buying life-saving medication, says the Hepatitis and Transplant Patients' Federation (FNETH).
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com