A contraceptive pill, endometriosis treatment and an IVF medicine will be made cheaper to gain access, in the final round of the health financing of women announced by the Albanian government.
The government will finance various additions to the pharmaceutical benefit schedule (PBS), including the contraceptive pill ‘Slinda’, a pill with only progesteen and the new endometriosis treatment Ryeqo.
Both medicines will be mentioned on the PBS from 1 May, after recommendations from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Council.
More than 100,000 Australian women are expected to benefit from the Slinda pill list every year, which can pay more than $ 250 for a year of treatment without a subsidy.
Extensive research has been conducted into endometriosis, a condition that lives in about one in seven Australian women with where tissue is comparable to the lining of the womb. ((ABC News: Claire Moodie))
The drug Ryeqo, a relatively new pain treatment for endometriosis, currently costs up to $ 2,700 for a year offer.
Minister of Health Mark Butler, who will make the announcement in Adelaide on Sunday, said that the cheaper medicines would help “to catch up with decades of inactivity and neglect in areas that are important for Australian women.”
“These offers can save women and their families thousands of dollars throughout their lives,” he said.
To improve access to IVF treatment, Minister Butler said that women with specific low levels of reproductive hormones would also have access to a combination therapy that is announced via the PBS.
To improve access to IVF delivery, women with low levels of reproductive hormones will earn earlier access to the pergoveris of the combination therapy via the PBS. ((ABC News: Cameron Simmons))
The treatment was previously only financed in later IVF -Cycli, but will be available via the PBS from 1 April.
The number of Pergoveris pens per script will also be doubled, from two to four, which means that women who need four pens to complete an IVF cycle only pay once.
Without the PBS subsidy, four Pergoveris pennen would cost more than $ 3,500, said Minister Butler.
The government said that the latest offers are a supplement to half a billion dollar package of women’s health measures announced in February.
Minister Butler said that Slinda was the third contraceptive pill that was mentioned on the PBS in recent months, after the addition of the Yaz and Yasmin pills.
“These investments really reflect our determination to improve the options for women who are dealing with a lot of important lifelong costs in health, not because they are always sick, but often because they are women.”
About one in seven Australian women has endometriosis, a condition in which tissue grows comparable to the lining of the uterus outside, causing pain and sometimes infertility.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners said that the Ryeqo drug was recently marketed as a new treatment for endometriosis, but the active ingredients have been used for many years to treat other disorders.
Last year, the Albanian government approved the first endometriosis medication that had to be mentioned on the PBS within 30 years.
A spokeswoman for Minister Butler said that the exact costs for the PBS budget cannot be specified because they are commercial in trust with the pharmaceutical companies that make the medicines.
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