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Dr Kerryn Phelps, AMA President, Sydney

PHELPS: There are a lot of people who are disadvantaged, who depend heavily on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme to stay well and I think we have to be thinking about those people and to simply cut that much money out of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme without consulting carefully with the medical profession about what is best for patients is not a responsible action.

QUESTION: Do you know which drugs will be hit the most or do you have an idea at the moment which drugs will be affected?

PHELPS: I think we can presume that the high volume, high cost drugs are going to be the ones that will be targeted but what we need to do is to carefully sit down and look at what is in the best interest of patient care not what is in the best interest of this bottom line, this budget. What we have to do is to look at the long term as well, the prevention of disease. Keeping people well in the long term will prevent disability and health costs in the decades to come.

QUESTION: For example, antibiotic types of drugs, sometimes all you really have to do is walk into a doctor's door and you'll get a script for an antibiotic, sometimes does the trick, sometimes not. How does one encourage the medical profession to pull back on that sort of prescription?

PHELPS: You see, you've bought the propaganda there that doctors are over-prescribing.

QUESTION: I'm being a devil's advocate.

PHELPS: I know and I'm answering you as a devil's advocate. I think it's important that doctors are not scapegoated. Even the word over-prescribing presumes that doctors are doing something wrong. Doctors are very happy if they're provided with the evidence about what is best for their patients, to prescribe in the most effective and cost-effective way.

We have to keep in mind all sorts of things and the cost to the system, the cost to the patient and what is best for the patient are all the factors that we have to bear in mind and the important thing is what is best for the patient.

QUESTION: So are you giving any proposals to the Government to consider?

PHELPS: We have put a submission paper to the Government and we are very keen to work constructively with government in order to responsibly maintain the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. As doctors, we recognise our role in that responsible maintenance of the PBS but we must always bear in mind what it means for patients who may not be able to afford medication if the cost goes up.

QUESTION: What proposals have you put to the Government?

PHELPS: The AMA put forward a position statement which looks at a range of different options but certainly the basis of that is that any changes to the PBS should be based on evidence and that there should be a limitation to direct consumer marketing of pharmaceuticals and that the scapegoating of doctors not be the mechanism by which government controls prescribing.

We don't want to see any more bureaucratic red tape around prescribing and if they increase the number of drugs that you have to call up to get an authority for, when doctors know that that's the best drug for the patient, then that is going to add cost, it's going to add time and it's going to add bureaucratic red tape to what is already an overburdened bureaucratic system.

Ends

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