Australians skipping, delaying medicines due to price
As living costs deplete their medicine cabinets, Australians are taking expired medications, skipping doses or choosing to delay or not fill a prescription.
The federal government attempted to address this problem by lowering the maximum price of prescription drugs listed in the subsidy plan to $25.
While this is said to save taxpayers more than $1 billion, a survey commissioned by the McKell Institute found 43 per cent of Australians were prescribed unsubsidized drugs.
As a result, almost one in five people said they could not afford medicines not included in the Medicines Assistance Scheme.
Nearly one in four people prescribed medications outside the program said they did not purchase them, while nearly a third delayed purchasing them, while 16 percent were left without the basic needs to afford them.
Overall, more than a fifth of survey respondents said they delayed filling a prescription due to cost, and 18 percent said they never filled it.
About 15 percent skipped a dose to make it last longer, and 12 percent reported taking expired medications instead of filling and paying for a new prescription.
“They have to make a really difficult decision between food and medicine, between something for their family or something for themselves,” Edward Cavanough, chief executive of the McKell Institute, told AAP.
“This is a bit of a wake-up call.”
Part of the problem is Australia’s slow PBS listing process.
In 2022, it took 391 days from the time a prescription drug was approved for use until it was included in Australia’s subsidy scheme.
By comparison, it took 101 days in Japan, 121 days in Germany, and 167 days in the UK.
This situation has worsened in recent years, reaching over 600 days by 2025.
“There are also new and innovative drugs that have been approved,” Mr. Cavanough said.
“Being able to reap the benefits of that is a really positive thing.
“(But) PBS can’t keep up.”
The government has repeatedly lowered the maximum price of prescription drugs since taking office; PBS has consistently been cited as a beacon of health policy by Australia’s leading political actors.
Health Minister Mark Butler once again supported the system, announcing on Friday that a drug used to treat cerebral palsy will be added to the program.
“The expanded PBS listing is part of the Albanian government’s commitment to making medicines cheaper and more accessible to all Australians,” he said.
The Australian Associated Press is the beating heart of Australian news. AAP is Australia’s only independent national news channel and has been providing accurate, reliable and fast-paced news content to the media industry, government and corporate sector for 85 years. We inform Australia.
