Tuesday, 18th August 2009
Remedies needed for pharmacy scheme
The editorial on the pharmacy of your choice (POYC) and its development made interesting reading (August 13). There are a number of faults with the system that need to be remedied.
I am entitled to free medicines for a couple of medical ailments, one of which is high blood pressure.
What is surprising is that tablets prescribed by my doctor on the appropriate form are more often than not, not delivered to the pharmacy and consequently the client is asked to go to the health clinic to collect them. There is no assurance that you will find them there. These tablets are Amlodipine 5mg. There are other times when you are given the 10mg tablets and told to split them.
Another issue is that you are entitled to tablets every two months yet although the doctor prescribes 60 tablets, a daily dose for two months, you are only given 56 tablets as each packet contains 28 tablets.
I cannot complain of the service at St Michael's Pharmacy in Lija where Gillian Muscat, the pharmacist, does her best to try and please everyone. I was, therefore, taken aback when I witnessed a client blaming her in an arrogant and abusive manner for not having the tablets he had listed on his prescription.
This client could not understand that the pharmacy does not buy the tablets but they are supplied by the Health Department and so his anger should have been vented elsewhere not towards the pharmacist.
The POYC needs a lot of fine tuning before it is spread across the whole country.
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Comments
I once witnessed a huge woman screaming for Valium at a pharmacist who could not of course give her a prescription drug without the necessary papers. More recently I was told by a relative who was queuing there that the very patient pharmacist at the Gzira Health Centre was subject to violence because a client blamed him for unavailability of medicines. Apparently this is a common occurrence and security and sometimes police have to be called.
An yes it is the pharmacist who has to deal with all the problems as he is the front desk person. You can speak to all the government pharmacists and they will tell you all about it. Now the privare employed ones are getting a glimpse of the action. Unfortunately it is the pharmacy owner who is getting richer. speak out you pharmacists before its too late.
This applies to both pharmacists at community pharmacies serving POYC patients and to government pharmacists at government polyclinics.