Pharmacist accused me of stealing DH's medication!?

[BobbyBiscuits]

I have been picking up meds for both DH and DM from this pharmacy for nearly 20 years. I am not their client personally (Reasons will become apparent).

DH suffered a severe trauma injury and was in hospital, he came out for a week then had to go back in.

In the week he was home he was prescribed some sleeping tablets. Only 7. (They are strong and quite well known at the mo as footballers take them)

I went to pick up his meds during this time but this one was missing. the next day he was back in hospital.
From his hospital bed, he then called the pharmacy to ask where they were, a trainee pharmacist confirmed they were indeed there.

Fast forward a week, when he comes home from hospital. He confirms with GP they sent the prescription to pharmacy. I go to pharmacy to pick up these tablets. They look blankly at me and say there is nothing for him.

I go home and he calls them again to find out what's going on.
The pharmacist proceeds to say "I gave them to Bobby".
No you didn't. "I saw my colleague giving them to Bobby'. No you didn't.

I was shocked to the core these people who I've known for years would accuse me of stealing. Never a good deed eh?

When that wasn't accepted they then said the trainee pharmacist was lying when she said the tablets were there?

Again with the third lie, he then said that as DH had been in hospital and on painkillers he must be confused, i.e has had them himself?

It's clear to me they seriously fucked up, either one of them nicked it or they gave it out to a stranger. Outcome is I cannot ever face them again and we had to have a new prescription sent to a different shop after days worth or agony just to get what he was prescribed. The GP fully believed us as if that guy has done this before?

So, would you report them to the BPC etc for misconduct? What they did was bang out of order and so obviously trying to cover their backs.

Has anyone any thoughts on this, or experienced something similar?

They were correct by your own admission. You DID collect some meds! From the prescription you took in from the hospital. But your DHs sleeping pills were not on that prescription, they were sent electronically by the GP!

They do in my hospital! When you’re being sent home, they either send down to the hospital pharmacy for a short supply of meds or give you a prescription to get your own. If you’re on a course of antibiotics, they give you the remaining doses on discharge.

@Nantescalling @Soontobe60 yes it depends on the area. You'd be unlikely to get zopiclone on a hospital discharge either way unless it was a long term repeat though, regardless of whether you were getting it as an inpatient or not. Because it's habit-forming and desirable.

My local hospitals (a) do not allow any drugs in from outside and (b) also do not issue prescribed drugs whilst in the hospital. When I was in hospital and in severe pain (turned out to be my hip bone had crumbled) the nursing staff refused to provide anything other than paracetamol which did nothing for it - I was already on painkilling drugs that were much stronger. Despite asking them to let me take my own prescribed drugs they refused to allow mine into the hospital or to provide replacements for them. My GP actually phoned and faxed the ward asking them to ensure that I got my prescribed drugs - they refused. I was left in agonising pain for THREE DAYS in this way until a consultant who knew what they were doing attended. I was then put on morphine patches because of the severity of the pain, and remained on them for several weeks until I could have surgery.

I claimed aganist the hospital and they settled and agreed that the treatment I received was unacceptable. So even if that is what hospitals are supposed to do, it doesn't mean they will.

Are these controlled drugs?? If so they would have the script with an extra signature on it where you sign for them and you would have had to show ID.

Oh come on, that is quite clearly not normal practice. It obviously happened to you and I'm sorry for that (although there's no such thing as a morphine patch) but it was clearly an error/malpractice, not the norm.

Hospitals do administer prescribed drugs though. Dd carries some with her and we take her regular meds. I hate it actually because you have to hand them over and have no way of knowing if they’ll get lost

It’s Zopiclone! It’s not a controlled drug. I get it quite frequently.

@Soontobe60 They gave me a bag with one medicine in it. They did not give me the sleeping tablets. They repeatedly lied and said they did give me them.

I don't understand why you find it hard to get- the script was sent by the GP to them, they did not give me the tablets relating to that script but said they had done- How much clearer can I be?

@Airyfairy99 He nearly died from pyschosis caused by sleep depravation. So you don't know how serious it is/ could be if someone doesn't get what they are prescribed. The drugs themselves are not the point.

Your whole story is very confusing OP and it's no wonder the pharmacy is confused. I very much doubt that they have deliberately stolen your DH's medication and while they said you had collected medication, that doesn't mean they are accusing you of stealing. They probably think you are confused which may be a correct.

You are talking rubbish now.

Won't there be security cameras? Pprvkem solved

The security cameras will show OP taking a bag of medication though. She says something was missing in that bag. This only seems to have been discovered by her husband though after she gave him the bag. The husband says that he phoned the pharmacy and they told him that the medication was there. OP went to collect it and they said that it had already been collected. Anyone of several people could be confused and/or lying.

@wombat15 I'm not interested in you saying I'm talking rubbish or calling me confused. What is your problem?

And press rewind on those security cameras and at some point it'll show the person putting the medication IN the bag (or not). It's not difficult, why are you struggling?

Medication was put in the bag though. If there are cameras it will be for security reasons not to do close ups of exactly what is in an particular patients bag. Apart from anything else that would be against patient confidentiality, GPDR etc.

It really won't. Source - I work in pharmacy...

My problem is that it is difficult to ascertain what you say happened. You say that a particular medication was missing from the bag but it is not clear, to me anyway, when you realised this. Did you not know until your DH pointed it out?

OP seemed to be expecting 2 boxes of meds, but only got one (unless I've missed something).

They gave me a bag with one medicine in it. They did not give me the sleeping tablets. They repeatedly lied and said they did give me them.

I've picked up meds for my DM before and never looked in the bag at the counter (or at all). It's sealed with a sticker anyway although I've no idea if that's true for every pharmacy. If the script says two meds and you're handed a bag, you expect two meds and trust that there's two in there.

If @innerdesign is right then I'm surprised. I can just imagine how that could be exploited. No cameras on you when you pack up multiple meds for one patient... leave one of them out... patient doesn't question it til they get home and find one missing... you deny all knowledge... sell or take the drugs yourself

I am not clear on whether OP herself spotted that there was only one box of tablets or whether she didn't know anything until her DH told her. It seems that a lot of the information on what was said by the pharmacy (e.g. that the tablets were there) also seems to have come from the DH which given he is not well could have come from confusion/misunderstanding etc.

As for exploiting the lack of close camera scrutiny, pharmacists are professionals who have spent at least five years training. Most will be honest and even the odd bad apple is probably not going to risk their career to obtain 7 tablets.

I think it's more likely they genuinely think the drugs were in the bag and therefore handed to you rather than them gaslighting you and accusing you of stealing.

If the drugs have gone missing though it does need investigating.

@Sparklfairy If @innerdesign is right then I'm surprised. I can just imagine how that could be exploited. No cameras on you when you pack up multiple meds for one patient... leave one of them out... patient doesn't question it til they get home and find one missing... you deny all knowledge... sell or take the drugs yourself

I am right, and as @wombat15 says this is why the profession is so highly regulated. Some pharmacists are dodgy and get up to no good, you can see the determinations on the GPhC website. But it's not common. Do you think all GP prescribing is filmed, or all nurse drug administration rounds in a hospital? It would be like Black Mirror.

@Sparklfairy Thank you. I did not look in the bag as it's not my responsibility to do so. It is indeed sealed. I did not ask for that med by name as I did not again feel the need. We knew it was there along with the pain relief as GP confirmed.

I regret that now, obviously.. but some people trying to say I did something wrong? Jeez.

As soon as he could he phoned them and they again confirmed it WAS there. (This was 2 days later as by then he'd been blue lighted back to hospital so called from his bed). He can't have them in hospital but wanted/ needed them for his return.

So they ( a female trainee pharmacist) confirmed it was there 2 days after the day they allege I stole/took it.

They ( 2 senior men) then told DH the trainee pharmacist "was lying' that the medicine was there. Why would she do that?

The whole thing stinks. They know they fucked up and said everything they could to blame me/us.

Sorry you're in this position OP and all the best for your Dh but if it's any consolation what I've learnt from this thread is - always check a prescription before you leave the pharmacy premises. I regularly pick up my DH's prescription and never open it up to check but I will in future (although I guess that the street demand for blood pressure tablets is pretty low).