Woman comes in with a prescription for her child and asks for it to be filled. Oh, and also, may she have her other child, Day’s inhaler repeats as well.
*types name into computer*
“There aren’t any repeats for Day – we didn’t even dispense any inhalers last week when you came in.”
“Nah! I got them, you gave it to me when I was here!”
“We had a list of items here but no repeats. They were mostly creams prescribed that day.”
“WELL! How come I got them the other day with the other things I’ve got???”
At this point, I got a little worried because there may be a possibility of us handing out someone else’s prescription (or rather, item) bundled with Day’s items. So I offered to check the prescription to see if we have left it out or somehow deleted that dispensing from our system.
I got the Rx out and showed the mother the two pages with NO inhalers whatsoever in sight.
“Then how come I got the inhalers in my bag??! And it says on the box there are repeats.”
I looked at the Rx before and after Day’s (just to see if we have indeed bundled another patient’s Rx with this one – mistakes like this have happened before. We’ve even accidentally picked up stock bottles – thankfully no benzos! – and bagging it with patients’ Rx)…behold! Inhalers for Night. Another child of this woman.
Ugh!
“Did you mean inhalers for Night??”
“Oh. Ya, that must be it.”
“But we just dispensed this last week, it’s too early for them.”
“Well, recently my kids are needing them more often and we’re going through them!”
“Right. So Day is using the inhalers as well? You know that you should be getting Rx for Day and you need to tell the doctor that Day is using Night’s inhalers?”
The thing is, both children are under 6. They don’t have to pay for prescriptions – WHYYYYYYYYY do this? And INSISTING that the inhalers were for Day when even on our history, no inhalers were ever prescribed. Self medicating?
Makes you wonder how can a mother gets muddled up with which child has asthma or not (they are not twins)…and argues with me that the child has that certain medication. In the end, no apology, no embarrassment – just continual demand for that ruddy repeat.
After 7 days.
A young child going through the 120 and 200 doses of fluticasone and salbutamol respectively – in 7 days?
Right.
Miss Community