The Pharmacy Guild of Australia has welcomed the price drop on Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme medications which came into effect on New Year’s Day.
Most patients, including those in Hume and Whittlesea were paying $42.50 for a PBS medication, however they will now pay just $30. This follows Parliament passing legislation late last year to lower the maximum co-payment cost of PBS medicines.
The Pharmacy Guild of Australia’s national president Professor Trent Twomey said this will be a big help to some 19 million patients, especially those who have been struggling to afford their medicines.
“In 2019-20 we learnt that 900,000 Australian patients did not get a script filled because they could not afford it,” he said.
As health professionals, this disturbed us immensely and led to our Affordable Medicines Now campaign which pressured both parties to commit to lowering the cost of PBS medicines in the lead up to the last election.
“It’s a credit to our politicians that they listened to those concerns and gave a bi-partisan commitment to lower the maximum co-payment for PBS listed medicines after the election.”
Professor Twomey said for the first time in the history of the PBS medicines, the general co-payment for medicines has come down instead of going up.
However, Professor Twomey said the campaign to make medicines universally affordable is far from over.
“We are now pushing to lower the maximum co-payment of PBS medicines even further, to $19,” he said.
“Reducing the maximum co-payment to $19 will mean an additional 30 per cent of PBS medicines are covered.”
A national survey commissioned by the Pharmacy Guild in 2022 revealed the affordability of healthcare was the biggest hip pocket concern among polled voters.
