It is hugely welcome that a deal to roll out free HRT has finally been agreed \u2013 but the Minister must reimburse women who have spent hundreds of euro on HRT already this year, according to Social Democrats TD P\u00e1draig Rice<\/p>\n
Deputy Rice, who’s the party’s health spokesperson, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cA firm commitment was given, by Fianna F\u00e1il and Fine Gael, that free HRT would be rolled out for women from January this year. That commitment was breached.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead, the Health Minister has been unable to get an agreement, with the Irish Pharmacy Union, over the line until today.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile I welcome the fact that this deal has belatedly been reached, women who rely on HRT have already spent, on average, hundreds of euro on this vital medication this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf government promises are to mean anything, then this money should be reimbursed to all of those women.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore generally, this entire debacle of the government rushing out announcements without doing any work and then failing at implementation cannot continue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe commitment to provide free HRT should never have been made if a deal was not in place to make this a reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis entire episode has all of the hallmarks of a cynical election stunt, made in the interests of electioneering and not women. Women\u2019s healthcare deserves more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is hugely welcome that a deal to roll out free HRT has finally been agreed \u2013 but the Minister must reimburse women who have spent hundreds of euro on HRT already this year, according to Social Democrats TD P\u00e1draig Rice Deputy Rice, who’s the party’s health spokesperson, said: \u201cA firm commitment was given, by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,642,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-padraig-rice","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n