Helping smokers quit cost HSE €2.5m over five years

Galway smokers with medical cards cost the Health Service Executive (HSE) more than €2.5 million over five years for chewing gum and nicotine patches to help them to kick the habit.

New figures reveal the HSE coughed-up €500,000 on average each year since 2011 for prescriptions for therapies and medications for the treatment of nicotine addiction. The prescriptions were dispensed by GPs in the county to patients covered by free healthcare schemes.

These include nicotine patches, chewing gum, nasal sprays, and lozenges; as well as the prescription medication Champix, which has the effect of reducing cravings.

These products were added to the list of reimbursable items by the HSE to encourage smokers to quit in 2001. They are available to medical-card holders, and patients covered by the Drugs Payment Scheme (DPS) and Long-Term Illness (LTI) scheme.

The most commonly prescribed products include Nicorette gum, Nicorette inhaler, Nicorette transdermal patches, and Nicorette nasal spray.

According to research, nicotine is responsible for the dependence of regular smokers on cigarettes.

Prescriptions for Champix were also dispensed by GPs to help combat smokers’ urges. This is used to treat addiction by weakly stimulating nicotine receptors. It is said to reduce cravings for cigarettes and decrease the pleasurable effects that users get from smoking.

The cost of providing these products to medical card holders in Galway was €592,000 in 2011; €600,000 in 2012; €526,000 in 2013; €444,000 in 2014; and €409,000 in 2015.

Meanwhile, prescription drugs used for treatment of alcoholism among Galway’s medical card holders has cost the HSE almost €125,000 over five years.

A total of 5,370 prescriptions were issued by GPs for drugs for the treatment of alcohol and drug dependency under the medical card scheme in the city and county between 2011 and 2015.

Some 5,161 of the prescriptions related to drugs typically used for the treatment of alcohol.

The drugs prescribed to help alcohol-dependent patients included Antabuse, which treats chronic alcoholism by producing an acute sensitivity to alcohol. This results in an immediate ‘hangover’ effect, causing nausea, headaches, thirst, and weakness.

Meanwhile, a further 209 prescriptions were issued for Nalorex, which is a long term treatment for addiction to opioids.

In Galway, the cost of the drugs amounted to €25,000 on average each year for treating alcoholism among medical card holders.

Nationally, the total cost to the taxpayer of treatment of alcoholism among medical card holders was in excess of €1.2 million over five years.

The data was supplied by the HSE following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.