Sue: Taking complementary medicines – The expense of complementary medicines

Sue
Female
Age at interview: 65
Number of medicines: 16
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian

Sue finds the cost of her complementary medicines expensive. As her health is a priority for her and complementary medicines are a major part of that, she prioritises them and goes without other things.

Well it keeps going up. That is one of the big downsides of complementary medications because they're not recognised in the mainstream system. So I now have a health … I'm now old enough to have a Health Care Card so the prescription drug on the PBS, the Ursofalk, I can access quite affordably through that system and that's subsidised anyway because it is on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. 

But the compounded things are quite expensive, some of those little vitamin D tablets they're a dollar each, it's a dollar a day, that soon mounts up … a lot of these other things too are quite expensive and they're not claimable. So the Health Care Card payment is going to help a little bit, that extra money, but it's quite an investment. You have to invest in your health if you're going to do this, yes. It wasn't obviously so bad when I was earning a wage and I can afford it now but it does mean that I can't afford other things. 

I prioritise … because now's the time when you're newly retired and still fairly fit and healthy and mobile that people do travel and I do feel it when I'll be having a conversation with six people and everyone's talking about … especially in the European summer … going here and going there and I'm not. I get a bit down in the mouth about that but whether … I mean I suppose on the strength of how much I have to spend on the medications I could probably afford an overseas trip … not a flash one, but I'd get there every couple of years which I now can't do.

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The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.