Staff at HSE’s emergency drug dispensaries making mistakes, say pharmacists

The Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) has today hit back in what is becoming an increasingly bitter war of words with the Health Service Executive (HSE).

The IPU has today claimed that it has seen evidence of clear mistakes with the medicines dispensed to patients at some of the HSE’s emergency dispensaries.

The union has warned that the likelihood of inexperienced and overworked staff in these dispensaries making such mistakes would increase on Tuesday as demand for prescriptions was expected to rise significantly after the bank holiday weekend.

One Mayo pharmacist reported his experience in checking the medicines dispensed by the HSE with the son of one of his patients who had collected the medicines from the appointed HSE dispensary.

“The prescription was for seven items in total but when the son brought the medicines back to me to double check what he had been given, I found that the HSE had no stock for two of the items … made errors in respect of four of them and only dispensed one of the items correctly,” he said.

The pharmacist reported that he rang the HSE pharmacy on Saturday evening at 6.30pm and was told that the HSE pharmacist was in a meeting.

“The technician I talked to told me he would ring back but I did not receive a reply,” he said.

“I rang again and again requested a reply and got none.”

The IPU has also said that it would write a formal letter to the Minister for Health expressing its concern at the poor quality of the HSE’s contingency planning on Saturday and the danger to public health which had arisen.

“The HSE was clearly not prepared for the relatively light volume of patients they saw on Saturday,” said IPU president Liz Hoctor.

“I fear for what might happen when the normal post Bank Holiday surge occurs tomorrow.”

Referring to complaints today by the HSE regarding alleged intimidation of staff in dispensaries by pharmacists, the IPU said it “would not condone any intimidation by its members but it has seen no evidence of any such intimidation”.

It was also stated that the letter of complaint from the HSE to the PSI (The Pharmacy Regulator) contained no specific details of any alleged bad behaviour by a pharmacist.

The Union has also criticised the HSE for themselves seeking to intimidate pharmacists with threats of legal actions and delays in considering any application by pharmacists to re-engage with State drugs schemes.