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.