OPINION


gP shopping and pharmacy hopping


ShE wAS mEREly ANgRy whEN ShE TElEPhONED, BUT SOBBINg UNCONTROllABly whEN ShE hUNg UP.


by Terry Maguire T


he patient, she told me, a young man, had requested his weekly medicines two days


early, claiming a holiday opportunity had arisen unexpectedly and, when she politely refused, explaining that the doctor had requested the medicines be dispensed weekly and only the doctor could alter that request, he got nasty.


he had form as he attempted to get every phased supply early and she had given in the last time and the time before that. he insisted she ring the gP. She refused, saying she was too busy which - to be fair - was true. he rang the surgery on his mobile from the pharmacy and, when he got through, he told the receptionist what he wanted and then insisted the pharmacist take the call.


She refused, insisting the call come through the pharmacy telephone. At this point he became abusive and stormed out, only to return insisting she explained how he could make a formal complaint and affirmed that he would not be back in the pharmacy when he collected his last batch of medicines on the coming friday. I’m not sure the staff felt the


degree of disappointment he believed this declaration would engender.


I could empathise. Some years back, when I asked a customer if he ever felt like a ‘pharmacy slut’ I knew I had burned out. I knew I had moved beyond that boundary marking the point between where I gave a damn and where I didn’t. This cocky forty-something popped into the pharmacy on a friday afternoon and casually and assertively requested a loan of lansoprazole.


It was not an ‘emergency supply’, which he would be required to pay for, merely a loan. And he would not be paying it back in person, he told me. Rather he was requesting that I collect from his doctor a prescription on Tuesday that he would order on monday.


Intrigued by his confident, if somewhat contemptuous, approach, and the fact that he had not - according to my computer records - visited our pharmacy since 2005, I asked which pharmacy he normally used for his prescription needs and enquired why he didn’t go there for a loan of lansoprazole. he was unclear


what I meant by the question, stating he used many pharmacies and choose one dependent on where he happened to be at the time.


Today, he told me, he was on his way to meet up with a friend and, as they would be drinking, he needed his lansoprazole as he finds he gets troublesome heartburn if he drinks without it. he did have a supply at home but, as he was already on his way into Belfast city centre and was passing, he felt it was more convenient to get a loan on this occasion from us.


hence my ‘pharmacy slut’ comment which I do regret and agree was totally unprofessional, but it did identify, for me at least, that I had burnt out and needed to do something about it. Doing something was not easy but a few weeks off to get over the insertion of a coronary stent did help.


So I knew how my colleague felt. She wasn’t sure if she could go on, she confessed. This was a recurring issue and the level of naked aggression from customers, who do not get what they want, is worrying her. I reassured her that what she did was right and that, if anything, she


needed to be more assertive. I recognised that she too was on her way to burn-out to that place where she would get nothing from the job she did and that would be reflected in the customers she served.


There were always those who took advantage of the system, but that percentage seems to have increased exponentially in recent years, with the result that every pharmacy is dealing with more and more confrontation and aggression. The lack of proper systems in gP practices is only making matters worse.


when a practice doesn’t have a gP present - as many of them regularly don’t due to a severe manpower shortage - receptionists keep the plates spinning and, where prescriptions are concerned, pharmacy takes the strain.


formal complaints procedures are a new weapon for those denied their fix of choice. It’s getting so bad I am told that ordinary decent drug dealers are concerned that their biggest competitor is now our much-loved health service where there is a new term for it: ‘gP shopping and pharmacy hopping’.


PhARmACy IN fOCUS - 43


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