{"id":11075,"date":"2025-01-09T12:11:07","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T12:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/?p=11075"},"modified":"2025-01-09T12:11:07","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T12:11:07","slug":"womens-healthcare-caught-up-in-farcical-blame-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/womens-healthcare-caught-up-in-farcical-blame-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s healthcare caught up in farcical blame game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is completely unacceptable that the rollout of free hormone replacement therapy for women has been delayed by a farcical blame game between the Department of Health and pharmacists, according to Social Democrats TD Sin\u00e9ad Gibney.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy Gibney, who represents Dublin-Rathdown, said:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWomen suffering from symptoms of menopause have found themselves caught in the crossfire of an unedifying row between the department and the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis has resulted in a deeply frustrating delay to the introduction of the free HRT scheme, a \u20ac20 million budgetary measure that was supposed to be in place by the start of January.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, instead of seeing a reduction in their monthly medical expenses, women are still being charged in full for HRT products, with no clarity as to when the scheme will be introduced.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile the IPU has complained about implementation gaps and insufficient preparedness by the outgoing government, the Department of Health has blamed pharmacists for the delay in a dispute over dispensing fees.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is unfortunate that these issues were not resolved in advance of legislation being passed to give effect to the free HRT scheme, as this delay has left thousands of women out of pocket.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhatever the reasons for the blockage, there must be an immediate end to this needless bickering between the department and the IPU in the interest of women\u2019s healthcare.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>January 9, 2025<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is completely unacceptable that the rollout of free hormone replacement therapy for women has been delayed by a farcical blame game between the Department of Health and pharmacists, according to Social Democrats TD Sin\u00e9ad Gibney. Deputy Gibney, who represents Dublin-Rathdown, said: \u201cWomen suffering from symptoms of menopause have found themselves caught in the crossfire [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5379,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7,497],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-press-release","category-sinead-gibney"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Women\u2019s healthcare caught up in farcical blame game - Social Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/womens-healthcare-caught-up-in-farcical-blame-game\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"ga_IE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Women\u2019s healthcare caught up in farcical blame game - Social Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is completely unacceptable that the rollout of free hormone replacement therapy for women has been delayed by a farcical blame game between the Department of Health and pharmacists, according to Social Democrats TD Sin\u00e9ad Gibney. 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