pharmacy

Prescription Medicines in the Dock – Who is to blame for the increasing drug deaths in our society?

Terry Maguire on November 3, 2017, 10:58 am | Readers 449

Ireland bucks the UK trend in drug overdose deaths; here they are more likely to result from “prescription medicines” than “illegal drugs”. Coroners locally implicate; tramadol, oxycodone or fentanyl in overdose more frequently than in England, Scotland or Wales where deaths are mainly linked to; heroin or cocaine. One implication is that prescription medicines are more readily available and, extending this logic, doctors and pharmacists are in some way involved; if we did our jobs better drug deaths would be …

Cannabis Oil; An idiot’s guide

Soapbox on February 12, 2017, 10:34 am | Readers 1998

Patrick, 84 this year, is nothing short of a minor miracle. A bright, intelligent and curious man, had he not been such a heavy and committed drinker, his life might have been very different. He has always lived in the street where he grew up in the pitiful poverty of the 1930s. In spite of his sharp intelligence he never broke free from the impoverishment inherited from his parents. A few years back we were sure he would die. Following …

How should we deal with pharmacists who make mistakes?

Soapbox on December 18, 2016, 6:14 pm | Readers 5283

On 6th February 2014, Mrs Ethna Walsh, a 67-year-old grandmother, was prescribed Prednisolone Tablets 5mg by her doctor. Having taken the first dose of 8 tablets she became ill, collapsed, was rushed to hospital and was dead within two hours. She had been dispensed propranolol 40mg tablets by mistake. Martin White, her pharmacist, fully cooperated with the investigation and admitted that he had been responsible for all steps involved in dispensing the medicine. He is an experienced pharmacist and …

Getting screwed by Big Pharma – Female Passion is not something that can easily be medicalised…

Soapbox on December 3, 2016, 7:00 am | Readers 1121

A customer complaint that his Viagra had not been dispensed led me, with the help of my street-facing CCTV camera, to discover his wife had dumped his Viagra tablets into the street wastepaper bin as she left the pharmacy with his monthly medicines. I’m not sure how common this phenomenon might be. Nor am I sure how the average, long suffering, partner of a 60-year-old, overweight male with minimal personal hygiene and bearing a strong resemblance to a church …