A couple told yesterday of their struggle to "scrimp and save" to afford the medication denied them by the Scottish Executive's "out-of-touch" prescription charging policy.
Pat and Mary Byrne spoke out in support of The Scotsman's Change the Charges campaign after Mr Byrne - who is registered disabled - was told he had to pay for the prescribed drugs that keep him from becoming confined to a wheelchair.
Mr Byrne, 56, a former NHS training manager, suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, an arthritis-like crippling back condition that strikes one in 100 men a year throughout Britain.
Mr Byrne said: "This condition means the bones in my neck are fusing together. The drugs I'm on slow the process down and they are absolutely essential to me, as I found out when I ran out one month. Within a day I could hardly move and I could quite literally feel the joints in my back fusing together."
Mr Byrne said Executive ministers were out of touch with the needs of the chronically ill in Scotland.
"In my job, I saw politicians turn up at hospitals to see the sanitised, airbrushed version of what it's like to be a sick person cared for by the NHS.
"But there are so many more ill people living at home and it's those people the politicians are out of touch with."
Mr Byrne believes it is unfair that someone on income support but physically able to work can get free prescriptions, while a disabled person unable to work must pay.
The Scotsman's Change the Charges campaign is calling on the Executive to scrap prescription charges for people with chronic or life-threatening diseases.
It would cost around £9 million to end charges for the chronically ill - a tiny fraction of the overall NHS drugs budget of £960 million.
The current, outdated system of prescription charging does not exempt people who suffer from chronic illnesses including cancer, leukaemia, hepatitis C, asthma, arthritis and multiple sclerosis.
Mr Byrne added: "Maybe prescriptions shouldn't be free for everyone, but they certainly should be if you suffer from a chronic condition."
Because Mr Byrne cannot work, his wife, Mary, must foot the bill for his prescribed drugs.
She decided to pay out in excess of £95 this month for an annual pre-paid prescription for her husband.
Mrs Byrne, a librarian for an Edinburgh law firm, said: "To me the whole system is a form of discrimination.
"To pay for Pat's medication we just do without - that is the whole sum and substance of the thing. We scrimp and save.
"These charges are very unfair indeed."
Labels: No Prescription, Online Pharmacy, Prescription Drugs
# posted by Network @ 11:27 AM
