It's 4:30AM. The "fisher" arrives looking beaten and left for dead. She has a really bad hair-do, smeared make-up, and is wearing a thick down-lined coat. You know what she is going to ask because it is 70 degrees outside. Let's hear the whale-of-a-tale that ensues:
Fisher: I need to buy some syringes for my mother. We just drove down from New Jersey and she forgot to pack them. She needs her morning dose.
Pharmacist: Does she have a prescription on file with us?
Fisher: No she gets them at **anonymous** pharmacy without a prescription.
Pharmacist: We are a prescription-only county. The best I can do is call her doctor at 8am and get a new prescription for her. The other option is to drive to the next county 45 minutes away where there is no prescription requirement.
Fisher: But the pharmacy by where we are staying told me to drive 45 minutes to get here and I could buy them here. She needs a dose cuz she is shaky and sick.
Pharmacist: If she is that sick you need to call 911 and have an ambulance pick her up. (She said she didn't have a phone but I watched her stow it in the coat pocket when I suggested calling. When I offered to call 911 she said no. She would drive back and get her mom and take her to the emergency room.)
Fisher: Will she make it if it takes me that long to get her and go to the emergency room? She is really sick and shaky. I just need her syringes. (A ten day supply, of course...)
Pharmacist: I am sorry, those are the only options.
She left and the store manager followed her out to the car (out of curiosity because she came in and left so quick he thought she stole something). While in the parking lot he watched her ask a junkie (we know this because he is extremely thin, scruffy, and buys glass eye droppers, copper scouring pads, BIC lighters and nothing else every time he comes in) where she could buy some "fireworks." Go Fish!
Syringe laws are designed to keep these fishers from endangering the rest of us. Working in healthcare allows me the joy of seeing addiction at its worst. Rehab does not work for IV users. The government should allow us to humanely euthanize them like so many unwanted cats and dogs. It would be a new twist on the "Humane Society." (I do NOT condone killing cats and dogs unless it is a HUMANE MEDICAL NECESSITY. The overabundance of pets at my house is testament to that.)
This has been a public service announcement of the bitchy, disgruntled pharmacist network....beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!
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4 comments:
And I was mad last night b/c we had a sub-pharmacist IGNORE our rules and wouldn't allow us to sell syringes to a patient with insulin and a prior rx for syringes b/c he was "scruffy looking".
Pharmacy-induced paranoia has run rampant.
Wow, u certainly did the right thing by asking questions!
All my grandparents have passed away and it insults me when those m*therf*ucker junkies invoke their "grandmother"s to purchase syringes
Wait...how does requiring a prescription for syringes protect anyone?
You as a professional, of course, need to follow the laws in your locality... But I'm curious about how I'm safer because some random junkie can't get fresh works.
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