COST of living pressures mean that some asthma sufferers are avoiding buying prevention medications, health-care consumers say, and in extreme instances may be relying on emergency departments as their primary health-care plan.
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The executive director of the Health Care Consumers Association of the ACT, Darlene Cox, said some people would choose to live with a wheezing breath rather than pay the cost of implementing an asthma plan.
''It's a costly business managing your own chronic condition,'' she said.
''People make decisions about allocating resources all the time. Do you pay for shoes for your kids or pay the electricity bill?
''Those decisions are made with health costs as well and there's a lot of older people who will not fill all their scripts. The cost of health care is a considerable burden for the consumer.''
Ms Cox said the consequences of not taking asthma medication could be dire and she urged people to explore their options, rather than simply go without.
''The idea of an asthma management plan is to help people avoid acute [attacks] otherwise they end up in the emergency department and that is dangerous and extremely expensive for the health-care system as well.''
McKellar mother Yelin Hung has a health-care concession card and she said it helped her afford the cost of managing her son Christopher Aguilera's asthma condition.
''Otherwise the medication and doctor's visits would be very expensive,'' she said. ''I only work part time and it would cost nearly all the money I earn from my job, if I did not have the concession card.''
The Australian Capital Territory Chief Health Officer's Report 2010 said research indicated only about one-third of people with asthma in the ACT had a written asthma plan. Spokeswoman for the Asthma Foundation Nathalie Maconachie said people who had difficulty paying for the medications should contact the foundation and it would try to connect them with support groups and provide assistance.
Senior research fellow at the Menzies Centre for Health Policy at the ANU Laurann Yen said her work had shown that many older people faced difficult choices.
''What people said was they would often weigh up whether or not they are better off paying this bill this week or getting their medications,'' she said.
''It's not something that happens to everyone but people who may need a lot of different medications, or if they have family members who also need a lot of prescriptions, do find these problems.''
Ms Yen said people should be sure to find out what they are entitled to under the Medicare safety net and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme safety net to ensure they are not missing out on help they were entitled to receive.