Issued by the National Department of Health
9 March 2006
Today we are presenting to you two very important issues in the health sector. We have the final draft of the Human Resource Plan for Health which has been developed through an extensive consultation process with stakeholders. This draft is being released with the aim of enabling stakeholders to engage with the document before it is officially launched on the World Health Day, April 07.
The second issue is the announcement of the new draft dispensing fee. As you know, the Constitutional Court delivered its judgement on the medicine pricing regulations in September last year. The Court identified a few minor defects in the regulations and specified changes that had to be made. These changes have been made and gazetted within the deadline set by the Constitutional Court.
On the actual dispensing fee that may be charged by pharmacists, the Court ruled that the Pricing Committee should reconsider the current dispensing fee of 26% of the single exit price capped at R26. The Committee was required to provide reasonable opportunity for inputs and take these into consideration in determining the appropriate fee. The court also put an obligation on the pharmacists to supply all the information required by the pricing committee to conduct this exercise.
The pricing committee invited interested parties to make submissions and the deadline was extended to 20 December last year to allow for extensive participation. All parties involved in the court action made submissions and engaged with the pricing committee.
As a parallel process, the Department of Health distributed questionnaires to all pharmacies in the country requesting specific information relating to the income and expenditure of pharmacies which is important in setting a fee that facilitate the viability of the retail pharmacy industry while meeting Government's objective of increasing access to affordable medicine. Unfortunately, the response to this survey was very poor despite the efforts made to assist pharmacists to fill in the questionnaire.
The pricing committee evaluated all the information available to arrive at the draft fee we are announcing today.
It is important to appreciate that this draft dispensing fee only relates to the activity of dispensing only at the dispensary section of the pharmacy. This activity includes reading and evaluating a prescription, picking and packing the medicine and handing the medicine over to the patient with an appropriate advice. The committee also took account of the costs related to the electronic claims from medical schemes in the calculation of the fee.
The pricing committee has presented their recommendation and I have decided to invite comment on the draft fee. The draft regulations will be published in the Government Gazette within the next few weeks. Because of the urgent need to bring certainty to the industry, we have decided to invite comment for a period of one month after the publication of the draft regulations in the Gazette.
The draft-dispensing fee:
The dispensing fee must be calculated as follows:
Where the single exit price of a medicine is less than seventy-five rands, the dispensing fee, is a total of seven rands plus 28% of the single exit price of the medicine.
Where the single exit price of a medicine is seventy five rands or more but less than one hundred and fifty rands, the dispensing fee is a total of twenty three rands plus 7% of the single exit price of the medicine.
Where the single exit price of a medicine is one hundred and fifty rands or more but less than two hundred and fifty rands, the dispensing fee is a total of twenty six rands plus 5% of the single exit price of the medicine.
Where the single exit price of a medicine is two hundred and fifty rands or more, the dispensing fee is a total of thirty-one rands plus 3% of the single exit price of the medicine.
On the HR Plan, the significant changes have been made on chapter four and five which begin to set targets for training of health personnel to meet the rising demand. Determining targets for training must be based on the capacity of health sciences education and training institutions to produce the required numbers.
Government is making provision for a significant increase in the total health workforce during the next five years as it will be demonstrated in the presentation by Dr Mahlati. It is essential that planning takes a long-term view in addressing the challenges relating to supply and distribution of health professionals. This is also necessitated by the fact that training periods are relatively long, averaging 4 years but increasing to between 10 and 15 years in the case of specialist medical training.
We request stakeholders who may still have further input on this revised document to submit these to the Department before the 24th of March 2006.
Enquries:
Sibani Mngadi
Director: Media Liaison
National Department of Health
(012) 312 0763
082 772 0161