Personal Responsibility

Personal Responsibility:

Ensure that you actually come and collect your refill medications.

Today is the 26th of March. If you have not come and collect your medication since the 19th of February and your next appointment is on the 5th of May, that means I am perfectly within my rights, to supply you up to your next appointment only. True or False?

Answer: False. Because when the patient has a friend who is one of the pharmacy technicians..all the patient has to do is just go and talk to his friend.. and thereby overturning your decision. *Damn pissing off.

Be responsible for your child's medication.

Scenario 1: If you have a prescription for your child who is only 8 years old, you are expected to listen to what the pharmacist has to say while the pharmacist is dispensing. Common sense right?

What you don't do. You don't send your 8 year old kid to the counter and expect us to explain all the instructions to the kid while you are actually there sitting on the chair and staring at us. And after that, turn around and ask us to explain you again what you were supposed to do. This could have been avoided if you had just got your lazy ass off the chair and came up to the counter.

Read the instructions that are written on the medication.

I wrote there Paracetamol syrup 5 ml 3 times daily. Parents then came back and ask me, so I am supposed to give them 5 times a day. Err what? come again?

I give up.

Non-pharmacy related

I would just like to point out that those money that is being thrown around like candy belongs to the taxpayers.

OMGWTF.

And you thought people couldn't get any more stupid.

Then today happened.

God bless this country.

ridiculous

last month, a PRA from the admin office got transferred away and since our pharmacy just received 2 new PRAs, they requested to borrow one til they get a new one. so we agreed to let our PRA go for one month. this month, they requested for an extension.

now even when one PRA has gone, the office actually still has another PRA. but guess what they use that PRA for. cooking. yes, they have their own private cook. where got such thing right?! since their building used to be temporary accomodation for newly transferred people, they have a kitchen there. so their existing PRA cooks for them and they want our PRA to do what their PRA is actually supposed to do, which according to our PRA, can actually be done by one person. so if they actually used their PRA for her real job, they wouldn't need our PRA at all.

wth la. small hospital really, people just simply do as they please. so we decided that we will loan them our PRA for one month at a time until they get tired of asking us. sheesh.

I tried and I tried.

But I can't overcome myself.

I can't.

New person

Hi, i'm kimi. I work in a community pharmacy somewhere in an obscure part of a supposedly first world country but actually third world mentality. I think you know who I am.

I am going to rant here.

A week ago, my superior called us over for a slight discussion. Apparently, we were being complained for firstly not dispensing in the front counter and secondly not helping with the pre-packing.

Obviously, he could see the annoyance on both of our faces when he said that. When he asked us whether we had anything to say to that, I said no. Because firstly, I don't trust my superior. He probably say one thing to us and then say another thing to the people who complained.

So this brings me here. My colleague and I take turns dispensing, meaning one person being in the front counter and the other one filling behind because it is tiring to be talking to patients all day long, and secondly, the help behind is no help at all. I'm angry because they have the nerve to say that they have been dispensing all day. I dispense in front and then I run behind to fill 10 baskets, then I run back in front to dispense. At least I don't sit behind the desk and pretend to do some work.

Secondly, on us not helping with the pre-packing. Well I'll be damned. I would like to point out that I have been doing a damn lot of pre-packing and if you are too fucking blind to see it, I promise you, tomorrow I am just gonna sit at the front counter, dispense as fast as I can, but I am not going to run behind and help. Yes I am a vindictive bastard, but you can whine about it all you want. And I don't care about the waiting time anymore. Usually I would try to keep it under 20 minutes, but you know apparently doing so much for them, and then they turn around whine about it is going to just get you in trouble. I say just let the waiting time go over 30 minutes and write the report explaining why. Oh P.S best part is I write the report. I can imagine the report already, lack of staff co-operation, staff always disappearing for morning breaks, no pre-packing ( hey, none of my problem, it's not in my job description, when i helped them, they bitched about it, so why bother?)

Thirdly, I realize the country that we live in with their notoriously lazy government servants, will never EVER develop as a progressive country. Period. For us, its all style over substance.

( But that shall be another story for another day) And I can tell you this, the only reason, I am in this job right now, its because they are holding my license hostage. And to get it back I have to work for four freaking years. Its four years of my youth. And at the same time, we are not allowed to do locum until the third year of our service.

I'm going to take up kickboxing.

Hypocrites

I remembered once we had this particularly problematic patient who refused to budge from the front counter, even though we told her that her supply of medication has not arrived yet. She is the only person on that particular medication (an expensive one, mind you), so we had to buy it for her. And when it did arrive, she wanted two months supply because she had to go Singapore or dunno whatever country she was gadding about to.

What ensue was a long argument between her and my colleague. I was wisely keeping my mouth shut because if I was pulled into the argument, I would have asked her to get her supply from a hospital across Singapore, and then calculate the cost of her medication vs. the cost of transportation yada yada yada. Yes, I am a straight to the point, and I would have probably gotten a letter for saying that.

Anyway, the point of this post was, we found out what she worked as. That bitch, work as a pharmacy technician at a private hospital. Do you get why I am so irritated? She works in the same field as us. So she should understand, how the process works. She should bloody know how much is her medication which is probably why she is taking it from a govt clinic instead of her own private hospital. AND SHE SHOULD KNOW THAT ALL OUR MEDICATIONS ARE FREE AND THAT IS WHY WE CAN'T BLOODY AFFORD TO GIVE HER TWO MONTHS! WE SHOULDN'T EVEN BE BUYING THAT MEDICATION FOR HER WHEN THERE ARE GENERICS AVAILABLE ALREADY.

Yes we have no money. Our money is used for incredibly stupid stuff. Do you think that you patients are the only ones frustrated? I am frustrated with telling everybody, "sorry, we really don't have the stock yet but do please come back on so and so".

Gah!

Middle week rant

I am annoyed.

Medical assistants in my place anyways, are allowed to prescribe drugs for diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and so on and so forth. The person in charge agreed to it. Of course the doctors will be checking. They will counter-sign the prescription afterwards. Here is my problem. Say the MA give a supply of 3 months, the prescription will only be counter-signed after three months. Because that's when the pharmacy collects the scripts and send it to the doctor to be counter-signed.

Secondly, the drugs that the MA are prescribing are like Ticlopidine and Simvastatin. They are List B items. No shit.

Thirdly, I know the reasoning that person in charge give would be because the patient is stable and the MA is probably writing the same thing that patient had previously. But dude, how can ticlopidine 250mg become 25mg. You are not even copying it right. Like wtf. You can't even copy something word for word right. Seriously. Something is wrong with you.

I know the patient load is a lot. But here's an idea. Maybe if we start charging those pesky school kids that come to the place by the truckload even though they are not even sick. Then these damn kids will stop coming. Charge them five bob each time. Seriously. And if you think I am being unsympathetic, just hear this scenario out.

5 school kids come to the counter to collect their prescriptions.

Kid no.1 has constipation.

Kid no.2 has diarrhoea

Kid no. 3 has cough

Kid no.4 just went for a visit to the dentist

Kid. no 5 has conjunctivitis

So you mean to tell me, all these school kids who happen to be friends at the same time, had to come and see the doctor for different ailments. Shit. I say you shut down the school and call it a day. Because the school area should be closed down. Too many people are getting sick from going to school.

OMG seriously