Pharmacy Guild calls on Govt to fund hotline
The Pharmacy Guild of Australia is calling on the Federal Government to fund the Adverse Medicine Events (AME) consumer telephone hotline and ensure that this valuable community service is not discontinued.
The Guild has provided interim sponsorship for the AME hotline, which faced immediate closure in mid-2006, when the Australian Council for Safety and Quality in Healthcare discontinued its funding. This funding by the Guild, however, was never intended to be permanent.
As of 31 July 2007 the Guild will have provided $200,000 to ensure that the AME line remained in operation, proving its value to the Australian community.
The hotline played a vital role in discovering and highlighting potentially serious side-effects of certain sleeping medications earlier this year, demonstrating the value of the service in providing an early warning service to the community.
The Guild believes that it is now appropriate for the Federal Government to fund the AME hotline through the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and/or the National Prescribing Service (NPS).
