{"id":191087,"date":"2025-12-19T03:28:28","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T03:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/191087\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T03:28:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T03:28:28","slug":"new-blister-pack-rules-delayed-until-later-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/191087\/","title":{"rendered":"New &#8216;blister pack&#8217; rules delayed until later in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A decision by the Government to withdraw funding from January for so-called medication blister packs issued by pharmacies has been delayed following political backlash.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/news\/politics\/2025\/1211\/1548430-leaders-dail\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> the D\u00e1il heard that people, particularly the elderly and those with dementia, were worried that they would have to pay between \u20ac20 to \u20ac50 a month for the blister pack, which had up until now been issued free of charge.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The packs keep daily dosage of tablets in separate plastic pockets which allows patients avoid confusion around what to take and when.<\/p>\n<p>However, in a statement this afternoon, the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) said after &#8220;extensively engaging with the Department of Health and HSE&#8221;, it was agreed to pause the introduction of charges until a later date in the first quarter of 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The IPU said it was important to clarify that the supply of blister packs was not reimbursed by the State and has been a private service with proportionate fees set by individual pharmacies.<\/p>\n<p>Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said she welcomed the outcome of the engagement, and said the IPU will have more time to engage with patients in a &#8220;structured and individualised way over the next three months&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A decision by the Government to withdraw funding from January for so-called medication blister packs issued by pharmacies&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[134,524,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-191087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-medication","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}