I Want This Right Too!

My tech who is now doing her pharmacist pre-registration training in Canada called me a couple of days back. It was really good to hear from her considering she was not replying to my email and the last time it happened it was because she was hospitalised.

She was scolded by a patient earlier in the day. What happened was the patient had completely filled med A from his prescription and came back to ask for another refill. Naturally my tech explained that he could not get the refill. He then started scolding my tech and shouting at her. Lucky for my tech, her store's in-charge came out and scolded the patient. According to my tech, her in-charge said, "How dare you be so rude to my pharmacist. You are not welcomed in this pharmacy. Get out!"

I think all the pharmacists practising in direct patient care here in Singapore want to be able to tell our patients this too. So what if you are a patient, it does not give you the right to shout at the frontline staff nor to throw your prescriptions at them. We are humans too!

And people in the management, learn from the store in-charge. You need to protect your staff. Without your staff do you think the stupid hospital can continue to function?! Contrary to the old adage of "nobody is indispensable", professional healthcare workers are unfortunately not dispensable. A doctor no matter how brilliant is not a pharmacist simply because he/she does not have the qualification to apply for the license. Likewise a nurse's job cannot be replaced by a doctor or pharmacist because they are not qualified to apply for the license to practise. Wake up from your dreamland and see the truth.