Old medicine, new price

Having had my thyroid removed, I am dependent on medication to replace thyroid hormones to keep me in good health. The medication I take is Eltroxin 100mg, made by Goldshield Pharmaceuticals. Recently it was difficult to obtain these tablets as I was...

Having had my thyroid removed, I am dependent on medication to replace thyroid hormones to keep me in good health. The medication I take is Eltroxin 100mg, made by Goldshield Pharmaceuticals. Recently it was difficult to obtain these tablets as I was told they were out of stock.

Now I do not stockpile lots of this drug but I do keep a couple of packets "just in case". The price on the box of these tablets is €1.44 (Lm62c), expiry date December 30, 2009.

Having got a prescription from the doctor to allow me to get some from Mater Dei Hospital I went all the way down there by bus, not a short journey, only to be told I could now get them from a pharmacy, but they were not sure which ones had them. So I went back to my local pharmacy and was allowed to pay for two boxes of 50mg, the price of €1.92 (Lm82c), expiry date March 30, 2009.

Now this looks to me like someone else has been stockpiling these tablets to make a profit from other people's health. This is an increase of 30 per cent in price. Why should I be paying more for this medication which has a lower shelf life than what I paid for before?

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.