Poppin' Pills

Courtesy of Ross Koepke, University of Indiana, public domain

I read in the AJC today that several Georgia pharmacies, including KMART, CVS, and WalMart, have been handing out the wrong perscriptions to people, resulting in a school bus DUI (Gwen Dalley, Loganville), heart problems (unnamed 27-year-old, Cartersville), annoying nausea and neurological misfunction (Allie Fenell, Piedmont Park), and excessive antibiotic use (Canton). Lastly, these have resulted in almost no regulatory effort. Many of the "citations" are delivered privately as letters of concern that the public cannot see.

Before anything else, it might be wise to try a free-market solution. A public Wall of Shame, posted in a prominent place in the city and also on the internet, listing every pharmacy and the total number of registered mistakes found, to discourage shopping at poor quality pharmacies. If we wanted to be really kind, we might post several columns with descriptions of each kind of mistake (handing out wrong perscription, filling wrong perscription to correctly labelled container, improper details on otherwise correct label, et cetera). In any case, a shops direct sales or prices would be directly affected by their performance on our board of shame.

In addition to the board of shame, we would encourage those who received bad perscriptions to call regulators before calling the pharmacy, so that correct process and lawful reporting can be properly handled.

This paragraph is hillarious:

"Some studies indicate that about 3 percent of the prescriptions dispensed by pharmacies have potentially harmful errors. The patient may be given the wrong drug, the wrong dosage or the wrong directions." -AJC, same article.

It's especially funny because they are clearly trying to downplay the danger while, mathematically, you only have to accept 33 perscription refills to get screwed! 3 percent might be a small chance for a once-in-a-lifetime, but for a monthly perscription filling well, let's just say I'm happy to not be on pills. Besides, if it was the kind of pills I need, you probably wouldn't like my stories very much.

Of course, there is another major Healthcare problem in Atlanta. Grady Hospital, a charitable hospital run by state subsidies and private donors for the benefit of the poor, is nearly bankrupt. They're just closing out their Dialysis unit today, and were trying to move patients to other states only to find that three of these (New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia) would not take them, while other states are saying the same. They apparently forgot to tell some that Grady would foot their dialysis bill if they stayed, and 10 have already left. May God be with them.

Strict regulation may work, but it may be more effective to implement a simple device like the Wall of Shame. Grady Hospital has shown that the smaller your efforts, the more fruitful they usually are.