To be irate with the doctors/chemists here?

[oopslateagain]

My friend's dad has had an ulcerated leg for a few weeks, the usual rounds of antibiotics and dressings are leading to a slow improvement. Last week his doctors surgery had run out of dressings, they were given 4 dressings and told to get more from the chemist. Both the chemists in our town are completely out of dressings. My friend had to run round Tesco's on Saturday to try to find something to use, her dad has ended up spending the weekend with sanitary towels taped to his leg. We're in a tiny market town, if they had been an elderly couple without a daughter to run around for them they would have been left with nothing to use at all. Yesterday the doctors and the chemists STILL don't have any.

I am fuming on his behalf. This is the same doctors surgery who initially said he should have the dressing changed every day, then dressed it on Friday and told him to come back on Tuesday to have it changed again. My friend rang them and told them in no uncertain terms that was not good enough, and funny enough they then managed to get the nurse out to him every day to change the dressings.

What are they supposed to do?

Sanitary towels are a good idea!

It's sorted now isn't it? I'm not sure what you are asking.

Hardly the chemists fault - if they've been asked to order the dressings and can't get any from their supplier, then they're stuffed. (and it happens all the time).

Very bad form on the part of the surgery though, maybe a letter to, or a meeting with the practice manager would be a good idea?

valium it's not sorted yet, they still don't have any proper dressings.

I'm just really angry that an elderly, disabled man has been left without any way to carry out the treatment the doctor has prescribed. He needs to have the dressings changed twice a day. If the doctor doesn't have the dressings, and the chemist doesn't have any, surely it's up to the doctor's surgery to sort it out and not to do the equivalent of "not our problem", which is what they did when my friend rang them.

Shortages of these dressings would seem to be commonplace. If your friend's dad isn't obtaining them on prescription, buy online to avoid unnecessary treks around shops.

Fwiw, a couple of years ago an extremely heavy firebrick dropped on my instep and the resulting wound became ulcerated. The prescribed potions and lotions failed to heal the ulcer and after some 6 weeks of agony limping around, I resorted to salt water foot baths twice a day interspersed with liberal applications of honey to the area which healed within a week of the new regime.

I think I would have been inclined to ring around the nursing homes in the area to see if they could lend you some till more supplies arrived.

Unfortunately there are 100s of different types of dressings in a variety of sizes and for that reason most pharmacies only keep a very limited stock of the most common ones. Patients should be told by the prescriber to ensure that they order in advance of running out to prevent this happening.

District nurses often have a stock of dressings available to them in their treatment rooms (at least they do in the area I work) , so it's wortk asking them in an emergency.