Here's a quiz
Who should tell pharmacists how to do their jobs: the pharmacy or the government?
According to many people, conservatives and liberals alike, the answer is the latter. I guess that "government should just butt out!" meme, which was all the rage last week, has already gone the way of the Macarena.
That was brief.
UPDATE: Just to be clear, I think pharmacists should shut the hell up and do their jobs. You don't morally approve of every single task your employer asks of you? Well hell, join the freakin' club, buddy. And fill those bottles while you're at it (or those little disc-y things or whatever). But let's leave legislation as a last resort as opposed to a knee-jerk first response. That goes for both sides.
Comments
The last thing we need in this country is a bunch of judgmental pharmacists refusing to hand out medications that a physician has prescribed. It's bad enough that they're about a foot or so higher than everyone else anyway.
I'm not so sure that governmental action is needed though. It should be done by whatever board licenses the pharmacists. Those who refuse to do their jobs should be stripped of their licenses. Now if that board refuses to do this, THEN maybe some kind of law is needed. Congress has shown a penchant for stepping in when they judge that a profession is not regulating itself properly, e.g. the Sarbanes-Oxley law for accounting.
Posted by: Tracy Miller | March 28, 2005 11:19 AM
I find it appalling that there are pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions, but to compound that by refusing to pass the offending prescription on to another pharmacy? Unreal. And no, it probably shouldn't be legislated but then there's the whole American Pharmacy Association by-laws or whatever that says a pharmacist can object on moral grounds. And if the APA doesn't penalize their members for not passing the prescription onwards or somehow ensuring that the patient gets it filled (as those same whatevers seem to stipulate), then they need to get rid of that by-law.
Posted by: K | March 28, 2005 11:41 AM
Un-fucking-believable. Don't these people even know that the Pill, for example, is prescribed for medical conditions other than preventing pregnancy. They need to butt out. It's none of their damn business. I'm hardly going to stand around arguing with some pharmacist about why he's threatening my life and my future fertility with his stupid beliefs. This is unbelievable. But hey, in this political and "religious" climate, they can get away with it.
Posted by: BlogAnon | March 28, 2005 07:18 PM
The idea of limited government seems to have completely left the table. It's somewhat irritating, to say the least--to no longer have that in common with either the liberals OR the conservatives.
Posted by: Adam | March 28, 2005 08:08 PM
I sure as hell don't want the government stepping into this situation. You know the old saying, "there's a lot of fish in the sea..."? Well, there are a shit load of pharmacies out and if one of them doesn't do what they advertise their business to be (as in filling prescriptions), take your business elsewhere.
K, pharmacists can't take away someone's prescription. In other words, they don't own the scrips, they cannot alter the scrips and they cannot write new ones. If a patient gives the pharmacist a script for medicine and the pharmacist refuses to fill it and refuses to give back the script, the patient needs to notify his or her physician and ask for a new script or a call into a different pharmacy. Pharmacies, outside of medical centers, are private enterprises in buisness for profit with lots of competition.
As for an employee who denies a patient a prescription, the decision to fire that employee is entirely up to the employer. Of course, I don't know how many employers care for having employees who turn away paying customers.
Yes, I know there are places where there may not be many choices in pharmacies, but there ways of getting around this. It may no be convenient, but it can be done.
Posted by: Mlv | March 28, 2005 08:53 PM
Hey, take a look:
http://www.dailypundit.com/all/
Bill Quick fights for small gov't.
Posted by: Adam | March 28, 2005 11:25 PM
Millie- I know they can't take prescriptions away. You know they can't take prescriptions away. That doesn't mean it hasn't happened.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&ncid=716&e=17&u=/washpost/20050328/ts_washpost/a5490_2005mar27
Posted by: K | March 29, 2005 11:38 PM
Oops, hit submit too soon.
Millie, the problem is stemming primarily from the morning after pill. The article in the above link cites two women who were unable to fill their prescriptions in time because of the actions of pharmacists.
Posted by: k | March 29, 2005 11:44 PM
I think the point is that since it's already illegal to steal people's prescriptions, enacting new legislation would be redundant. Sure, some people will always break the law, but you deal with that by punishing the violator, not by passing more laws.
Posted by: Barry N. Johnson | March 30, 2005 07:08 AM
After doing a little more research on the subject, I found out that four states already have laws on the books that prevent a pharmacist from being penalized for refusing to fill a prescription that he/she thinks is morally wrong. There are other states that are currently considering such legislation.
Interestingly, there are at least three states that are considering heading in the other direction - making it illegal for pharmacists to refuse to fill a legal prescription.
Posted by: Tracy | April 1, 2005 10:40 PM