December 2023 by Joyce Le
Incompetent, unprofessional and unsafe practice. I am appalled at the quality of service that was provided.My grandfather was discharged from the hospital and we were referred to this Pharmacy and their services. During discharge planning, the mutual agreement with the hospital was that this pharmacy would dispense and provide the home medication administration service twice a day, in the morning and night. He was discharged in the afternoon and we were told the service would begin that evening. Called the Pharmacy to confirm and was told we should expect somebody to drop by from 7:30-8:30pm. They did not arrive until after 9pm but we were understanding since it was raining heavily that night. The next day, my grandfather was expecting a visit in the morning, as I made sure to remind him to let them in. By 2pm, I was informed by my mother that nobody had come. I called the pharmacy to inquire when we could expect a visit, and was met by a very rude and impatient male staff member. He was extremely dismissive and said that they were only providing the service in the evening. After clarifying that there was a mutual agreement between the hospital and our family that the service would be twice a day, he continued to raise his voice and declare that since the scheduled frequency for the medications were once a day, a morning visit was completely unnecessary. He then made a comment about how it was not clearly communicated to them by the hospital. After clarifying multiple times, there was no attempt of accomodating the request. I then asked about his nicotine patch that has to be changed in the AM. He claimed they did not receive a prescription for this, though it is in fact part of the prescription that was faxed. He then suggested we apply it ourselves if we wanted it done in the morning. We would not ask for this service if we could do it ourselves. After urging him to double check the prescription many times, he finally admitted that it was "overlooked". Instead of apologizing for the error and taking any accountability, he quickly dismissed me again and refused to acknowledge the request for the morning service. The prescription was clear for some medications to be given in the AM with breakfast, once daily, and others at bedtime. I am very familiar with the particular medications and the time of day they should be taken as they are meds I personally administer daily as a nurse on an acute stroke ward. I was completely gaslit, shut down and made to feel like I didn't know what I was talking about. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, hoping that their mistake would be rectified. I was very wrong. After my shift at the hospital, I headed over to see my grandfather, hoping to clarify the medication discrepancies with the nurse. However the night nurse had already administered my grandfather's meds and left by that time. When the nurse came to administer the medications the first night, they gave all oral medications he was prescribed in the morning AND night, including the ones that he had already received from the hospital in the morning. Ultimately, he was given 3 of his AM meds twice, resulting in multiple medication errors. After the extremely unprofessional phone call, that night he was again administered his AM meds, including the application of his transdermal nicotine patch that should have been changed in the AM. Under the male staff's word of advice, completely disregarding the prescribers orders and hospital regimen, this was how it should be, because it was prescribed as "once a day". The nurses also failed to take his BP prior to administering the antihypertensives. It is standard practice to perform these assessments prior to med admin to prevent adverse outcomes.Shame they call themselves a pharmacy when they lack the competence to thoroughly review a prescriber's orders, dispense or administer medications accurately and perform relevant client assessments. As a healthcare professional, it is disheartening that this is the type of service is recommend to the communit
