Broken promises on free HRT disrespectful and cynical – David Cullinane TD
3 January 2025
Sinn Féin spokesperson on Health, David Cullinane TD, has strongly criticised the outgoing government for failing to deliver their HRT scheme in the timeframe promised in the lead-in to the General Election.
Teachta Cullinane called for the outgoing Minister for Health to push the process along by engaging with pharmacists and the HSE to implement a free HRT scheme.
He said that the scheme should be fully free to access, and not the misleading free-but-with-a-fee model, which the Minister for Health had proposed. He added that this should be achieved by expanding the free contraception scheme to include all hormone treatments for women of all ages.
The TD for Waterford said that it was disrespectful and cynical for Ministers to make promises in budget speeches ahead of an election, only to immediately fail to deliver on them in the first week of the new year.
Teachta Cullinane said:
“Women were promised free Hormone Replacement Therapy from January in Budget 2025. This was put in legislation ahead of the General Election. We are now in January and there is no scheme. Pharmacists have no advice or clarity to give people who were told by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that they would get free HRT.
“It is highly disrespectful and cynical to promise free treatment ahead of an election, only to break that promise in the first week of the new year. There are still no regulations to govern the scheme or the system for reimbursing pharmacists for HRT. There is talk of new IT infrastructure, which will add more delays.
“The scheme on the table still includes the ridiculous proposal to pay for the product but not the fee – which is covered under other schemes such as for contraception, but just not for women with menopause. It is not a free scheme.
“The outgoing and the next Ministers for Health must sit down with pharmacists and the HSE to agree how this will work. The scheme should be a simple expansion of the universal contraception scheme to include all hormone treatments for women of all ages. It should use the same relevant arrangements and systems, which already exist. This should be the first step under the next Government towards a fully integrated lifecycle primary care scheme for women.
“There will also be significant complications for any free HRT scheme arising from medicine shortages. Pharmacists are increasingly relying on exempt products, which are not licensed in Ireland but approved in another EU state and have no pricing arrangement for Ireland, which can only be bought privately. These products show that we need to be working across Europe to manage shortages and get value-for-money in medicines. The scheme will need to consider how to cover these products given the reliance on substitute medicines.”
