Published by Computachem Services

P.O Box 297.
Alstonville. 2477
NSW Australia

Phone:
61 2 66285138

Editor's Note:
Terry Irvine works in a busy rural pharmacy in NSW, and we ask him to write to us on a regular basis, to keep us in touch with what is actually happening in the trenches, in the daily battle that is community pharmacy.
While Terry's thoughts are highly individual and personal, they are delivered to readers to share, digest and compare.
Perhaps those community pharmacists who are finding the increasing complexity of the daily grind in community pharmacy a bit hard to bear, may take some solace in a similar experience.
Complexity is an increasing problem within the Pharmacy Profession, and the regulators, while having a perfectly valid (in their view) reason for regulating procedures down to the mini-micro level, leave nothing for the quality of life, and contribute significantly to escalating pharmacist stress levels.
I think this is well illustrated in Terry's current "Postcard from the Coalface".

This is the beginning of my "long week", I worked today and will work everyday until next Saturday, so it is a bit of a strain to assemble thoughts about what has happened in this part of the world.

Beginning with the most recent event, yesterday afternoon there was a Pharmaceutical Exposition for the GPs of the area, not too many pharmacists were in evidence although they had all been invited.
Four lectures of an hour each relieved the monotony of collecting pens and other branded gifts (will I receive sympathy if I use the Viagra umbrella when we are in Europe?).
Three of the lectures were by local specialists, and I now know a little more about urology, not very much about echocardiograms, and quite a good deal more about skin problems.

HIC also made a presentation, one of the items concerned Doctor Shopping.
It eludes me that they are not able to do more to curb this problem, surely with the recording of items in our dispense software they could easily determine patients who are visiting multiple pharmacies and multiple doctors, then locate these people and punish them if that is thought appropriate.

While on the subject of recording, currently most of the pseudoephedrine sales we make are recorded in a book, lately I have taken to recording them in the dispense computers when the sale accompanies prescription items.
Surely electronic recording should be mandatory with files being transmitted frequently to somewhere where the information can be collated and obvious shopping patterns revealed?
Our usual identification required is a drivers licence, if the Road Transport Authority (RTA) cooperated and had a record of the registration of the vehicles usually used by the pseudoephedrine shoppers the police could then make arrests, which would be especially useful if the shoppers were high on the drugs they manufacture.
Electronic transmission of S8 information was happening in South Australia when I was there last year, but NSW seems happy for us to use registers with written records that go nowhere.
For all the good that does in the location and identification of drug abusers we may as well bury the records in the back yard of the pharmacy (if we had one).

I was tempted to discuss the return of prescriptions by HIC with their representatives, but thought better of it as it was obviously not their area of expertise.
Country pharmacies are bedevilled with prescriptions returned with code 113, or something like that, when they have not been endorsed "immediate supply necessary".
Some of these prescriptions are for patients who obviously live away from any pharmacies.
Some of these people travel hundreds of kilometres to come to town, and visit infrequently, so surely some consideration could be given to this?
Also those patients whose dose regime is more than normal and therefore have less than a month's supply of their medication should be recognised by the HIC staff and the nitpicking return of these scripts be eliminated.
I know the latter patients should have authority prescription, but some doctors seem to be reluctant to talk on the phone to people who are not sick.

That is all for the time being Neil, I am cognisant of Plato's saying: "Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."

Regards

Terry