Pharmacy Phooey

I've had bronchitis now for exactly 9 days now. Never a laughing matter, it is now time for frowning.

Oh, I'm not concerned. I saw the doctor on the 6th day, and she had me get a chest x-ray. The x-ray confirmed that I don't have pneumonia. That's a good thing. But the bad thing was, I still have bronchitis. And there's really nothing they can do for me.

The doctor asked her office people to call in a prescription for an inhalant, though, to my local drugstore pharmacy. Only they called it into the wrong pharmacy. And they called in three days later than they said they would.

Today was the 3rd time I had been to the pharmacy. After ascertaining which pharmacy, I went to the right one this time, wheezing and coughing, and stood in a very long line. Thirty minutes later, I reached the front of the line only to be told, "Go see that other person over there."

I won't reiterate the rhetoric, but the clerk didn't have time to deal with me, didn't take time to even find out my name, and I walked out without the inhaler. I won't die because of this, or even suffer that much, but I do wonder how many sick or elderly people go to the pharmacy and find that they can't deal with the pain of being invisible, or maltreated.

I saw several people being told, over and over, in a voice escalating in volume, to go sit over there. Most of the people who stood there bewildered did so because they don't speak English. But apparently these clerks couldn't figure that out.

I don't mean and I certainly don't want for this blog to be a rant - but you have to think, there's got to be a better way to get people their prescriptions.