CFN – Medical Arts Pharmacy unveiled its new IDA/Rexall banner and corporate message: Where aging well means everything. And within the context of celebrating the lives of some of the pharmacy’s longest-lived customers, joined forces with advocates and the RCMP to tackle the issue of elder abuse, saying many services that pharmacists provide also help prevent situations where neglect or abuse might occur.
“As members of the healthcare team, we’re alert to anything that might suggest a situation of neglect or abuse. For instance, in the realm of medication management, we may discover that an individual, caregiver or family member does not understand the impact that under-medicating, over-medicating or wrongly medicating a person could have,” pharmacist Harry Haramis said.
“It’s one of the reasons why we perform medication reviews (MedsChek), make in-home visits, provide customer education and custom services such as compliance packaging. These and other services can help keep elders safer,” Haramis added.
The following are some red flag scenarios where the pharmacist will educate the individual and/or caregiver and choose an intervention (such as custom packaging) to improve and monitor medication compliance and the person’s safety:
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An elderly person needs the help of a caregiver to fill/reorder his prescriptions, but the pharmacist notices gaps in re-ordering medications that importantly control blood glucose, asthma, blood clotting, blood pressure, heart function, thyroid function or other;
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While conducting an in-home visit, the caregiver tells the pharmacist that she withholds the person’s pain medication for fear it may cause addiction;
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While reviewing an individual’s medication, the pharmacist notices there are many “missed doses” and considers the possibility that the individual is engaging in self neglect;
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A family member tells the pharmacist that his father is on “too many medications” and mentions he has decided to order an all-in-one treatment he has found on the Internet;
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A person enters the pharmacy to pick up a narcotic pain medication on behalf of an elderly neighbour, but the pharmacist has never seen this person acting on behalf of the individual before;
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The elderly person tells the pharmacist that the caregiver sometimes gives Mrs. XYZ’s medication to Mr. XYZ to calm him down and make him more agreeable.
Pharmacists/pharmacy-owners Harry Haramis, Josee Lemay and Suzie Pilon say that by talking about these and other scenarios, they hope to improve peoples’ understanding of medication-related issues, and are upholding one of the most ethical principles of pharmacy care: To help people make the best and safest use of medication.
Medical Arts Pharmacy is a privately owned company that has been trusted by community families and long-term care residences since 1956.
They were joined by Cornwall Ontario Mayor Bob Kilger for their ceremony.
Why are they joined by the Mayor? Didn’t City Council take away Medical Arts drug supplying contract for Glen Stor Dun in January 2010? At that time the Council awarded the contract to an outside supplier. The reasons were very vague and reminded me of someones hand in someones pocket. Every said it smelled to high heaven and I said “Something smells? The correct terminology would be that something STINKS! In this world (read Fiberal province) it would seem that payoff’s run rampant. It’s the sense of “entitlement”. Who pays for this? The residents of the home pay for it out of their meager finances. If I were a resident of that nursing home, I’d move elsewhere just to show them that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time! Get real!
Despite the fact city council allowed (for no reason) Medical Arts to lose its long-time role of providing Glen Stor Dun’s staff and residents with excellent “pharmaceutical care” (which incidentally goes lightyears beyond simply supplying medication) when it comes to making a statement about protecting elders from neglect and abuse, there can be no room for holding grudges. I believe the presence of the Mayor says something very special about the kind of values the Medical Arts team holds and demonstrates as members of the community.