The ongoing medicine shortage is forcing pharmacists to dispense unlicensed drugs.
98 per cent of pharmacists responding to a nationwide poll by Azure Pharmaceuticals say they dispense medicines not licenced by Irish authorities at least once a day.
424 medicines are currently in short supply, according to the Irish Pharmacy Union.
Sandra Gannon, Managing Director of Azure, says it's a real cause for concern:
"They are coming from a variety of countries, increasingly, with leaflets that are not in English. so that makes it incredibly difficult for patients when they're taking their medicine, and they should be used by exception but what we're seeing here is as the number of medicine shortages grow, pharmacists are being forced to use medicines from outside of Ireland, often, outside of the EU".
