Friday, 8 July 2011

The Pharmacy and P.A.M.S.

Since the initial appointment with the hospital I had been promised that the administration of my warfarin could eventually be handed to the local chemist, under the administration of Boots Chemists, so that I don't need to travel to hospital.  I was told this could only happen once I was stable.

I filled in all the paperwork, and then phoned and chased to get it put through.  Nobody had any idea about it, then the paperwork was apparently lost.  I filled it in again, and this time was told I needed 3 stable tests to be put through. At this point, 1 more test to go.

Upon having that final test, I still heard nothing, then heard that they didn't use the process with Valve Replacements so I was stuck with going to the hospital.  This is a big deal because it's typically taking 90 minutes, plus travel of 30 minutes, at a time I have no control over - and this will be eating into work time once i'm back at work.

Then, out of the blue, i got a letter saying i'm accepted and should attend my local pharmacy!  Not sure where that came from, but I later learned that they had only just started accepting valve replacement cases.  My local pharmacy is less than 5 minutes away, and they can see me at 9am each time, so this is great.

On my first attendance, I immediately realised that this was a world apart from the hospital, so much better.  A more individual approach to each patient.  However, it was equally clear that the computer ruled the roost - all calculations were issued by the computer based on the test results entered.  As a result, it needed a bit of fudging, especially as it didn't accept my slightly custom INR range of 2.5-3.0.

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