To take the meds?

[Medsinbin]

I work as a private housekeeper for an elderly lady who has recently been diagnosed with dementia and will shortly be moving into a nursing home. Unfortunately she has no close family so I've been filling in that sort of area a lot.

She's been on a load of medication like lanprazole, tramadol, codeine, duloxitine, and various blood pressure meds (not all at the same time(. She hasn't been taking them reliably and there's about three boxes of each stacked up, still sealed.

The nursing home have said they can't take them to administer and when I spoke to the pharmacist today she made it clear that while they can take them back, even through they're sealed and in the original packaging, they will be destroyed. It must be hundreds of pounds of meds (there's at least three boxes of each)

I take lansoprazole myself - exactly the same dose and brand. The lady I work for has tried to give her unused ones to me several times but I've refused so far.

Would I be unreasonable to take them so they don't just get thrown away? It would also save me several prescription costs which would be great because I'm looking at not having a job very shortly. (Just to be clear - it's only the lansoprazole I'm considering- I am absolutely 100% not taking any of the painkillers)

How is it stealing when he takes them and not when you take them? Surely it's theft either way?

She told me to take the one I take, which she no longer was taking.

Her son took everything, including her trays which had the meds she needed to be taking. He's also stolen her purse, cards and other valuables to sell in the past.

Also I was only going to take the one I was taking and the rest were going to the pharmacy to be safely disposed of - she had a few different strong painkillers like Tramadol and morphine which he either took himself or sold on to other users.

The lady offered them to OP. The son stole them. That’s the difference.

Aside from the huge gap in your own medical records (would GP care? I don’t know). Doubt the police would do anything.

I’m sorry about your friend’s diagnosis
OP it’s a cruel disease.

How could you possibly prove that the lady had offered them? If you were a registered healthcare professional taking the meds would get you struck off regardless of what the patient had said.

I'm not a health care professional. And she said multiple times, including in front of other people for me to use them- including before she was diagnosed.

To be clear - I have never once asked her for meds (apart from a couple of ibuprofen when I had bad period pain). It only started because I was putting her medication delivery away one day and mentioned that my GP had just put me on the exact same thing.

It’s illegal, but I’d take them (hate waste and I think about the environment)

Please read all of my posts.

How would you prove you had them? Or didn’t. What difference would it make- the OP has said she won’t have a job in any case. Plus son has stolen the tablets now so it’s all a moot point.

Yes, the one you've actually got a prescription for. I see no harm. It's true they throw everything away if it's returned, as it can't be prescribed 'twice'.

I've got tons of spare B vitamins and calcium tablets that were prescribed. I don't even think you can easily give them away? I could be wrong as I'm not on Facebook etc. it feels wasteful to have to chuck them.

The tramadol is really strong/addictive and can lower your seizure threshold so it's not suitable for just anyone. But druggies would buy it off her. Sad but true.

Hmmm they all need to be out of her house and yes will get destroyed. You could take them to prevent waste however this woman may not have capacity to give them to you or not and if discovered it could look bad on you. If anything happened, an incident or anything: on the face of it it seems fine to just keep them but due to the role you’re in it could cause complexities.

Please read all of my posts.

I am all for saving the waste but I worry that you may put yourself in a difficult position if anybody queries this.

Because theft from a patient is incredibly serious, and if reported, police would investigate, including a search. Stealing from a client with dementia is an aggravated offence.

Please read all of my posts.

He'll probably say you took them as his defence. Which could prove rather difficult when seeking another job if the accusations are still flying around at the time - or a full blown investigation.

It's not like you would never dream of taking a vulnerable lady's medication because you've posted here arguing that you should be able to do it.

Well considering the police found them in his car with him in it too....

You were lucky there, then.

It's better when someone has been in a position of trust that they take a stance of never, ever, risking a hint of something dodgy, never mind outright illegal. It puts you at too much risk, as once you've been shown to do one thing wrong (which taking her medication would have been), it makes it far more feasible that an accusation of something else could stick.

Also I was only considered taking the lansprazole which she was no longer taking and had offered to me, including before her diagnosis. It was also destined to go in the bin so would have had zero effect on her.

He took everything, including her current meds that she needed to take. I was the one who got everything replaced for her so she didn't miss any doses.

Doesn't matter. It would still put you at risk because the law is extremely specific about this.

Being pissed off that somebody else got to them before you and insisting that you weren't in the slightest bit interested in the controlled medications with a street value doesn't change the fact that you were considering something that was illegal and could have exposed you to significant risk of other accusations sticking.

Try thinking of it as though she'd said you could have a set of £250 diamond earrings because she never wore them anymore and then he'd stolen twenty grand's worth of jewellery - were it not for being caught with them, he could have easily said you'd taken them, sold the most valuable - and the Police would see you with your £250 diamonds saying 'I'd never do that, she gave these to me' when she was already cognitively impaired that even though she had, there's no guarantee that she had the ability to make that decision with full knowledge of the significance, cost or what she was doing.

It's too risky. You have to be absolutely without reproach or doubt when in a position of trust.

This is quite funny tbh. You're on here asking if it's permissible for you to take her medications that were prescribed specifically for her. And when her son comes and takes possession of them (without you knowing if he's consumed them or taken them to a pharmacy to be destroyed... and don't say you can guess, because I doubt he'd ever have guessed you'd consider taking them) it's suddenly a problem and theft and unacceptable.

Funny thread.

I wasn't "pissed off that someone got to them before me." I was furious that he'd robbed her yet again and taken stuff she was actively taking. His actions put her at risk which made me really angry.

It's different to taking a box of medicine that she'd offered to me and wasn't taking.

I know for a fact he consumed them because he's a drug addict and had stolen stuff from her including her purse, money from her bank account and sentimental items that he sold to get money to buy more drugs.

I never took a single thing from her that wasn't offered, and even then no meds apart from two ibuprofen.

And looking back? I wouldn't have taken the lansprazole either - it just seemed a shame for it to go in the bin when it was exactly the same thing I was taking.

She wouldn't have had full capacity in the period leading up to her diagnosis, either.

A son seems pretty close family (albeit a shit one) to me - your original post said she didn't have any and you were filling that role, too.

You were lucky that he got caught redhanded before you could implicate yourself. It's not worth the risk to even think about doing something like that, as it's a sheer fluke that he was caught with them on him; had he taken them or sold them on - or just hidden them - you'd be in line for some extremely unpleasant questioning about them and anything else he took.

I did