Diana: The costs of taking multiple medicines – The impact of reduced work hours and low income
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Diana
Female
Age at interview: 22
Number of medicines: 13
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Diana finds affording her medicines difficult regardless of whether she is studying, has a Health Care Card or is in full-time work.
It's been extremely difficult. Thankfully some of mine aren't too bad, but the Seroquel, for example, is about $60 a box. That really takes a lot out of you when you're studying and working, that can be a whole day's pay in some respects. Especially when I've got a multitude of specialists longer than my arm.
I’ve burnt through all my savings on just trying to get myself better enough that I can actually build up my savings again. It’s ridiculous when you see a specialist for half an hour and they charge you out of pocket $250. Some weeks I had … one point, a couple of weeks ago, I had four specialists in one week. It’s ridiculous, like … some of the medication costs aren't too bad, but some are just ridiculous. So I know that, due to different reasons like the trademarks and patents and all that, they charge what they have to, but I was on the Centrelink low-income Health Care Card for a while, but if the doctor forgot to tick a certain box, I had to hit the full price. So it was like there was no consistency across the board.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.