PHARMACIST STEVE

Steve, I just wanted to relay my horror story to you to add to the pile.  Two weeks ago my mother had a total knee replacement done by one of the nation’s best knee surgeons who performs several hundred knee replacements every year in Jacksonville, FL.  After spending 3 days in the hospital she was released with 4 different prescriptions, one of which was for an opiate agonist called Nucynta.  I picked her up and drove her home from the hospital.  She lives in a small town with only one pharmacy, CVS.  On the way home, we stopped at the drive through to drop the scripts off.  After a few minutes of staring and frowning at the scripts, the pharmacy tech told us that she could fill all of the scripts except the Nucynta.  When I asked why not she said that she didn’t feel comfortable filling that one.  Now, I know the pharmacy jargon as my wife has to deal with this sometimes and thank God I was with my mom that day, as she no doubt would have just had to go home, or try driving 50 miles to the next town in pain and try to fill a single, out of town script for Nucynta.  I told the pharmacy tech that my mother, sitting in the passenger seat next to me, had just been released from the hospital for a total knee replacement, that this was the only pharmacy in town, and that she knew very well that by giving her back just the script for Nucynta she was basically dooming her to driving around north florida visiting different pharmacies and being treated like a criminal.  I think its worth noting, that my mother, a devout Mormon, has never taken anything stronger than Tramadol, and certainly had no flags on her record or anything like that.  So, I demanded to speak to the supervisor.  The tech receded from the window and conferred with someone else who came up to the window to inform me that she didn’t like to fill Nucynta.  I told her that there was no way she could have contacted my mother’s doctor in that short period of time, so why did she now appear to be altering her treatment plan?  I had the surgeon’s pager #, given to my mother for emergencies, and made a display about paging him right there in the drive through.  The manager then tried to tell me that they were out of that medicine.  I told her “Stop lying to me. I’m calling Dr. X”  We sat in silence for a minute as I dialed on my phone, when the manager suddenly said, “Oh wait, I thought these were for a different strength, I do have these in stock after all!”  I hung up my phone and thanked her, she said they would be ready in an hour.  My mother was visibly shaking after this experience, after having been treated like a criminal, when she was just in pain and trying to make it home.  If this is what people have to put up with, I see this issue coming to a head.  Please keep doing what you’re doing and raising awareness on this issue!