Peter Ward
Well-known member
Keep taking the tablets.
Lets talk a little about tablets and health then.
Kidney Care UK have published a document entitled: What a No Deal Brexit Will Mean For Kidney Patients. At the moment, 29,000 UK people on dialysis have the right to travel to the EU and receive life-maintaining dialysis through reciprocal healthcare agreements using the EHIC card. That will probably end.
The 29,000 on dialysis and 34,000 with transplants receive a range of specialist medications needed to maintain life and wellbeing. The same rules on packaging, safety and standards are applied across the EU preserving safety and continuity of supply, with no tariffs.
Many of the drugs are made in the EU and any delay in supply puts lives at risk. A no deal Brexit could mean that drugs could be reduced or swapped with potentially inferior drugs from elsewhere such as the United States and China where reguations are slacker.This could be unsafe e.g. in the case of drugs to prevent rejection of transplants.
At the moment there are reciprocal arrangements for sending organs that are ready for donation to and from the rest of Europe. That could cease, reducing the opportunity for kidney failure patients to get a transplant. Also, if No Deal Brexit happens the current cross-border arrangements that exist between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland will cease and this could mean that NI patients will no longer be able to access care in the Republic of Ireland. Present arrangements rely not only on the UK’s membership of the EU, but also on the open border policy that this permits between RoI and Northern Ireland.
So, yes lets hope that I and others will be able to keep taking the tablets.