We’ve spent the last 2 days going to and from pharmacy to get drugs for the patients. After each visit we return to the ward empty handed after being greeted at the pharmacy with a chorus of ‘he is not there’ from the student pharmacists. ‘He’ is the pharmacy dispenser for the inpatient medications who we find very hard to pin down! He works between the HIV centre and the main pharmacy and so is often busy elsewhere.
Today we decided was THE DAY!!! I was most definitely going to arrive back on Ward 2 with a range of medication to treat the patients. So we decided to start early:
9:30am Notes sort out and first trip down. ‘He is coming’ they said (don’t be fooled, in Uganda this may mean in 5 minutes or could be in the next 6 months). ‘Come back at 10.’
10:15am Down through the hospital I walked again only to be told again ‘he is coming’. A very friendly student pharmacist invited me into the pharmacy to sit and wait (I was having slight deja-vu at this point as I’ve sat there for a good few hours on other occasions.) So I made myself comfortable and patiently waited.
10:45 It turns out that he’s actually not coming but he does have the key which someone kindly goes to get. So I wait a little longer….
11:10 The person that had gone to get the key must have got lost on the way I think because he didn’t return! So the student pharmacist went himself to find it. Wait a little longer….
11:25 The sacred key arrives!!!! A team effort in dispensing the 8 patient medications that we needed for the ward. He handed me the boxes and I counted out the tablets and labelled the bags (Nurse/pharmacist extraordinaire!)
11:55 Returned to the ward (with a very big smile on my face!) to give Karen the drugs so that she could start to give them out to the patients on the midday drug round…..and it’s back to pharmacy for phase 2! IV medication!!
12:00 Back in the pharmacy that I’m starting to call home the dispenser told me that I’d brought the wrong order book and that many of the drugs were not there. I was not going to be defeated though! So I enlisted the help of our Ward Manager who is a fantastic source of knowledge and she came back down with me to sort it out. (I was really wishing by this point that the hospital had a phone system!)
12:20 We managed to get about a third of the IV medication and fluids that we needed. He asked me to come back tomorrow for the others (something I can’t say I’m feeling to keen to do having spent the whole morning there!)
12:30 I arrived back on the ward feeling really happy and satisfied with what I’d managed to obtain (see photo above!!). Needless to say poor Karen had been running around like a headless chicken while I’d been away! It’s just crazy how long a simple job like that can take!
Total trips down to pharmacy: 5
Total time allowed for pharmacy related work today: 3 hours
Total drugs obtained: 2 courses of amoxicillin, 1 of septrin, 2 of prednisolone, 1 of ciprofloxacin, 1 of chloramphenicol, 1 of omeprazole, water for injections, IV normals saline 500mls 15 bottles, IV cloxacillin 50 amps, IV benzylpenicillin 25 amps.
Today we decided was THE DAY!!! I was most definitely going to arrive back on Ward 2 with a range of medication to treat the patients. So we decided to start early:
9:30am Notes sort out and first trip down. ‘He is coming’ they said (don’t be fooled, in Uganda this may mean in 5 minutes or could be in the next 6 months). ‘Come back at 10.’
10:15am Down through the hospital I walked again only to be told again ‘he is coming’. A very friendly student pharmacist invited me into the pharmacy to sit and wait (I was having slight deja-vu at this point as I’ve sat there for a good few hours on other occasions.) So I made myself comfortable and patiently waited.
10:45 It turns out that he’s actually not coming but he does have the key which someone kindly goes to get. So I wait a little longer….
11:10 The person that had gone to get the key must have got lost on the way I think because he didn’t return! So the student pharmacist went himself to find it. Wait a little longer….
11:25 The sacred key arrives!!!! A team effort in dispensing the 8 patient medications that we needed for the ward. He handed me the boxes and I counted out the tablets and labelled the bags (Nurse/pharmacist extraordinaire!)
11:55 Returned to the ward (with a very big smile on my face!) to give Karen the drugs so that she could start to give them out to the patients on the midday drug round…..and it’s back to pharmacy for phase 2! IV medication!!
12:00 Back in the pharmacy that I’m starting to call home the dispenser told me that I’d brought the wrong order book and that many of the drugs were not there. I was not going to be defeated though! So I enlisted the help of our Ward Manager who is a fantastic source of knowledge and she came back down with me to sort it out. (I was really wishing by this point that the hospital had a phone system!)
12:20 We managed to get about a third of the IV medication and fluids that we needed. He asked me to come back tomorrow for the others (something I can’t say I’m feeling to keen to do having spent the whole morning there!)
12:30 I arrived back on the ward feeling really happy and satisfied with what I’d managed to obtain (see photo above!!). Needless to say poor Karen had been running around like a headless chicken while I’d been away! It’s just crazy how long a simple job like that can take!
Total trips down to pharmacy: 5
Total time allowed for pharmacy related work today: 3 hours
Total drugs obtained: 2 courses of amoxicillin, 1 of septrin, 2 of prednisolone, 1 of ciprofloxacin, 1 of chloramphenicol, 1 of omeprazole, water for injections, IV normals saline 500mls 15 bottles, IV cloxacillin 50 amps, IV benzylpenicillin 25 amps.
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