Cancer groups say pharmacists tried to make money from chemo drugs Government cuts: Private hosptials and community pharmacists claim they could be forced to charge patients thousands of dollars for chemotherapy drugs. Pharmacists have been caught out in their attempts to get more money from the federal government for chemotherapy drugs that the government had already paid for. Private hospitals and community pharmacists had claimed they could be forced to charge patients thousands of dollars for the drugs because of government cuts to the amount it pays for them. But a damning Senate committee review has found the pharmacists had not only agreed to the cuts through a Community Pharmacy Agreement, but had helped develop the program of cuts. Cancer groups say patients have been used as pawns in the stoush, with alarm being caused by the pharmacists' claims. The agreement is a longstanding deal between pharmacists and the government to ensure that subsidies paid to pharmacists would come down in line with falls in the cost of drugs. A review by the cross-party Senate standing committee on community affairs has found pharmacists were given $277 million as part of that agreement to help offset the costs of the price cuts. The guild continues to deny this money covered chemotherapy, despite the review finding that claim is incorrect. Consumers Health Forum chief executive Carol Bennett said pharmacists' claims services would be shut had impacted on the most vulnerable. "We all now know the guild had been receiving inflated payments for these chemo drugs for years [and we] knew price disclosure would lead to a reduction in funding," she said. Health Minister Tanya Plibersek announced the budget would contain an extra $30 million to pay providers an additional $60 for each chemotherapy infusion.