Trudy Griffith, Pharmacist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Clinical Risk Lead in the Pharmacy Department speaking yesterday morning.
Those in the habit of using prescription drugs that have not been prescribed for them, are being warned to stop that risky behaviour.
The advice is coming from Trudy Griffith, Pharmacist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) and Clinical Risk Lead in the Pharmacy Department. Griffith made the comments while speaking on the topic of ‘Medication Errors’ at a Patient Safety Awareness Conference held at the QEH yesterday by its Clinical Risk Management Unit, while explaining that when a physician prescribes medication they take into account a patient’s clinical situation and also their individual factors.
“So that prescription is for you, that prescription is not for somebody else. There is a situation that takes place and I cannot quantify how often it happens where persons try to circumvent the system,” she said.
Griffith explained that some persons have been asking friends or family members to get prescriptions written in their names for them, which she noted is a very dangerous practice.
“So that medication then forms part of that person’s medication history. If something were to happen to that person and then you want to know what medications they are taking, and that pharmacy is contacted and they say ‘well we dispensed medication for this person on this date’, there is going to be a presumption that this person is taking this medication, when in fact it never passed their lips,” she said.
Griffith continued, “It is a very dangerous practice; very, very dangerous practice.”
The pharmacist’s comments came as she indicated that patients prescribed medication by one doctor, should share that information with any other doctor that is treating them, such as their ophthalmologist or gynaecologist. She insisted that there is no need to keep such information “hush, hush”, as it is imperative that whomever is prescribing, know what else is going into that person’s system.
“You could go to your GP and your GP will prescribe an antihistamine for you, you go to an ENT specialist and they prescribe an antihistamine, but if you never said I’m already using an antihistamine, you end up with two. Let’s take some caution here,” she said.
Speaking to the media after her presentation, Griffith said it is also important that persons do no share medications. She acknowledged that with the economy experiencing challenges, finances are tight for some persons and so they may not be able to purchase medication as needed and persons may be inclined to get medicine from a friend or family member. But, she insisted that sharing medicine can be quite unsafe, especially if the person has an underlying condition.
“You don’t know what is going on in that person’s body, so therefore that is a dangerous practice,” she added. (JRT)