Subsidies to slash massive drug bills
Three drugs that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year will be given special listing, slashing their cost for thousands of patients.
The Hospital Authority said yesterday the money would come from the extra HK$230 million allocated for medicine subsidies in the 2012-2013 budget.
Dr Cheung Wai-lun, director of cluster services at the authority, said the expanded budget would widen subsidies to cover 50 drugs, benefitting an extra 23,000 patients.
The measure is expected to take effect in April.
The three drugs - interferon beta, oxaliplatin and gemcitabine used to treat multiple sclerosis, colon cancer and bladder cancer - will be added to the special drug list. This means they will be available at public hospitals and cost just HK$10 for two weeks of treatment.
At present interferon beta, a new medicine used to slow the progression of multiple sclerosis, is only included in the Samaritan Fund's safety net.
Patients whose income means they are not eligible for social security now have to pay as much as HK$880,000 a year for the drug.
Multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease for which there is no known cure, affects the brain and spinal cord, with symptoms ranging from problems walking to double vision and lack of bladder control.
The Hong Kong Neuro-muscular Disease Association welcomed the move.
'This will lessen the economic pressure on patients who are relying on interferon beta now,' it said.
Ninety of the 400 multiple sclerosis patients in the city have found that their condition improved after using the drug.
The financial burden on patients with colon cancer, and pancreatic or bladder cancer will also be eased because treatment can cost HK$60,000 and HK$500,000 respectively.
Cheung said that in addition, coverage of the drug list would be widened to include nine more therapeutic groups for clinical applications.
They include medicine for cancer, epilepsy, depression, dementia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, blood disorders, cardiovascular disease and organ transplants.
The use of drugs either on the general or special drug lists would be broadened at a clinical level.
The extra HK$230 million this year is HK$7 million less than the extra funds provided a year before. But Cheung said the amount was 'quite significant' because the total cost of drugs at public hospitals this year was expected to be HK$3.6 billion.
'We are aware that the price of medicine is getting more expensive and our drug expenditure is growing at a double-digit rate each year,' Cheung said. He said the annual increase had reached double digits in 2009-10, and since then had been 10 to 11 per cent a year.
He said the authority expected that the increasing consumption and price of drugs would take up a larger share of its budget.
$260
The amount, in Hong Kong dollars, that it will cost some multiple sclerosis patients to get medication that now costs them HK$880,000
