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Pharmacy? Fri Dec 18, 2009 6:27 am
Emilia
Administrator
Thought I might just blog a little for you guys and for those that had fun joining in on my pharmacy quiz a while back, you might like this post.
Every since I started Pharmacy this year, I have been getting junk email from random companies asking if I want to order some medicines online or I need to get a batch of Viagra. How weird is that? I don't buy any prescription medications and why do I need Viagra? Essentially, you can order prescription medications from Australian online companies, but I have been getting these emails from overseas companies.
There are some issues that pharmacists and customers should be aware of.
The online pharmaceutical business is growing. More and more people want to buy medicines online because it is cheaper, quicker and easier. This is a growing concern for Pharmacists because there wouldn't be as many people going into pharmacies to buy medication. Bad for the Pharmacist.
Of course, my concern is with the customer. I love telling customers facts about their medication and there are many people that want to hear it. Patients need to be told how to take their medication so it works the best it can. Ordering from an online pharmacy takes out any patient counselling.
A good example is what happened last year. The packaging for Eutroxig had changed again. They used to be kept in bottles but now they were in blister packaging. Patients were told before that all the bottles had to stay in the fridge. Now, they could take out the strip of blister packaging they were using and keep it at room temperature and the rest could stay in the fridge, making it easier for people to take with them. If you were a regular patient taking Eutroxig, you wouldn't have known that you could do this unless someone told you. They don't do this for you online. This fact doesn't help make the medication work any better. It helps to fit in with the patient's lifestyle, which is very important too.
Talking to a Pharmacist face to face is also a good time to ask questions. Reading an instruction is all well and good (say when they receive medicines in the mail) but who do they do if they don't understand or the written instructions weren't clear? They would take them the way they want to. Being told instructions face to face makes things so much better. It makes facts stick in you memory, so when you go to read that instruction, you will remember what you are told.
Now onto the more serious stuff. Buying medications online puts you at risk of buying counterfeit drugs. This means that the tablet may contain the wrong dosage of a drug, contain a completely different drug or not have any drug at all. People die as a result of taking counterfeit drugs. The tablets look the same and they copy what the boxes they come in look like. A sad story I got told in a lecture was how doctors had gone to do major heart surgery on people in Africa. To do this, the heart must be stopped and then adrenaline is used to start the heart up again after the surgery was done. The doctor didn't realise that he had been given counterfeit adrenaline. The vials contained no adrenaline. The patients died as a result
All pharmaceutical medicines are regulated so much in Australia, so they we get the highest quality drugs. They get independently tested so that the tablet you are about the take contains what you think it does. Online, you have no idea where you medicine is coming from. That is a big risk to save a few dollars.
Every since I started Pharmacy this year, I have been getting junk email from random companies asking if I want to order some medicines online or I need to get a batch of Viagra. How weird is that? I don't buy any prescription medications and why do I need Viagra? Essentially, you can order prescription medications from Australian online companies, but I have been getting these emails from overseas companies.
There are some issues that pharmacists and customers should be aware of.
The online pharmaceutical business is growing. More and more people want to buy medicines online because it is cheaper, quicker and easier. This is a growing concern for Pharmacists because there wouldn't be as many people going into pharmacies to buy medication. Bad for the Pharmacist.
Of course, my concern is with the customer. I love telling customers facts about their medication and there are many people that want to hear it. Patients need to be told how to take their medication so it works the best it can. Ordering from an online pharmacy takes out any patient counselling.
A good example is what happened last year. The packaging for Eutroxig had changed again. They used to be kept in bottles but now they were in blister packaging. Patients were told before that all the bottles had to stay in the fridge. Now, they could take out the strip of blister packaging they were using and keep it at room temperature and the rest could stay in the fridge, making it easier for people to take with them. If you were a regular patient taking Eutroxig, you wouldn't have known that you could do this unless someone told you. They don't do this for you online. This fact doesn't help make the medication work any better. It helps to fit in with the patient's lifestyle, which is very important too.
Talking to a Pharmacist face to face is also a good time to ask questions. Reading an instruction is all well and good (say when they receive medicines in the mail) but who do they do if they don't understand or the written instructions weren't clear? They would take them the way they want to. Being told instructions face to face makes things so much better. It makes facts stick in you memory, so when you go to read that instruction, you will remember what you are told.
Now onto the more serious stuff. Buying medications online puts you at risk of buying counterfeit drugs. This means that the tablet may contain the wrong dosage of a drug, contain a completely different drug or not have any drug at all. People die as a result of taking counterfeit drugs. The tablets look the same and they copy what the boxes they come in look like. A sad story I got told in a lecture was how doctors had gone to do major heart surgery on people in Africa. To do this, the heart must be stopped and then adrenaline is used to start the heart up again after the surgery was done. The doctor didn't realise that he had been given counterfeit adrenaline. The vials contained no adrenaline. The patients died as a result
All pharmaceutical medicines are regulated so much in Australia, so they we get the highest quality drugs. They get independently tested so that the tablet you are about the take contains what you think it does. Online, you have no idea where you medicine is coming from. That is a big risk to save a few dollars.
