When we think about harming a person’s health.. we usually think about making a medication error… Few of us consider the harm that we are doing to ourselves by “selling our soul” to a corporate master.
Lets look at the recent hearing between the NC BOP, 3PX and K*** H***… This Rph was one tech down and by the end of hour 7, the staff had processed >300 Rxs.. one every 80 seconds. The Rph had no breaks.. PERIOD.. against 3PX’s own corporate policy…
According to what has been relayed as to what was said at the meeting… what transpired that July 1, 2011… was nearly 180 degrees apart from 3PX’s management and that of the RPH’s.. of course… none of the techs working that day were asked or allowed to tell their side of what happened. Perhaps the management from 3PX knew “which side of their bread was buttered on “… or their souls had already been sold to the corporation… “…the devil made them do it …”
What has been related from the closed door hearing/mediation was that the BOP’s investigator only talked to the non-pharmacist store manager and the DM Pharmacist. Those present at this mediation was the RPH’s attorney and the RPH… on the other side… the non-pharmacist store manager, DM Pharmacist, the 3PX’s attorney, two “shirts” from corporate, a BOP board member – non-pharmacist member and BOP attorney.
This corporation routinely defends its RPH’s working 14 hr days as A PHARMACIST’S CHOICE… the Rph VOLUNTARILY works these long hrs… which in NC, is against the practice act… I guess that they also VOLUNTARILY skip meal breaks and restroom breaks…. which is against their own policies and procedures (P&P) and the practice act.
I was not aware that anyone could volunteer to break the practice act and not be held accountable for doing such.
So all of this stress and trying to ignore calls from Mother nature and bodily function is a no-harm – no-foul on the Rx dept staff ?? RIGHT !
How many times a year.. do all of these work environment conditions stack up and cause harm to a patient because of medication error? Some claim that it is as high at 7000 lives get extinguished each year… from pharmacy dept errors.
Of course the patient who gets seriously harmed or killed is a victim…but how many other victims are there attached to these situations? Of course, the family and friends of the patient… but… how many people in the Rx dept are also victims?
Can you mentally dismiss that you seriously harmed or killed someone because you when along with a work environment that you knew was not safe?
The people in management – that are telling people that they should expect their Rxs ready in 15 minutes… it doesn’t matter if that is a promise, a guarantee or whatever word you want to use… we all know that many times it is physically impossible to even come close to those expectations.
The bottom line is .. THEY HAVE NO CONSEQUENCES for making those promises.. when things goes terribly wrong.. They are making those promises ON YOUR LICENSE !
The victims are numerous from our system… some of the health consequences are not seen in the short term….but a medication error can bring them home to roost real quickly…
Remember.. breaking the practice act and/or the corp’s P&P … gives the corp an excuse to dis-a-vowel any responsibility for your actions that cause harm to a patient. Whatever it takes to protect the corp’s reputation, minimize the cost to the corporation .. is what will happen.. if you end up under the bus.. you are basically just collateral damage.
Filed under: General dumb-ass problems
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