Barbadians are being urged to utilise the Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s (QEH) medication delivery service rather than opting to visit the hospital’s pharmacy at this time.
QEH’s Executive Chairman, Juliette Bynoe-Sutherland made this appeal while noting that on average “about 500 prescriptions per day” are handled by the QEH’s pharmacy. She indicated this service has helped the hospital to reduce the numbers coming in to access its dispensary daily. She was at the time speaking on a radio call-in programme yesterday.
“We have a medication delivery service, I don’t know if everyone is aware of it. Barbados Postal Service as well as Hopscotch, which is a local delivery company ...COVID brought certain innovations as an institution that we decided to sustain. A part of how we decompress or reduce the numbers in our pharmacy has been doing a medication delivery [service]. So it is important that people call the medication delivery service or our Help Desk can direct them to that and we should be in a position to get medications to persons with disabilities.”
Bynoe-Sutherland revealed part of the congestion theQEH experienced early yesterday morning was “people coming for medications, and we understand how important medication is to treatment, but we would wish people to really get on board with the changes that we have initiated to have the medications delivered.”
She reminded, “The number for our medication delivery line is 536-4804. We know that people, particularly the elderly, like to use the telephone and make their arrangements, but it is also available online through QEH Connect website to be able to order your medications online.
“So we have been using the technology to really reduce the congestion where we can. And people may not be aware, but on average we do about 500 prescriptions per day, so it is an important service and if we can get people ordering online or by telephone it will help to reduce our numbers.”(MG)