I have had several problems in dealing with the Shopper’s Drug Mart Pharmacy at the Blundell Centre in Richmond. I would think some of these issues go against best practice by the pharmacy association and may even be serious breaches in practice. Issues range from poor customer service to inadequate handing of prescriptions.


Chronology:
On Friday Dec. Dec. 18, 2015 I dropped off a couple of prescriptions at around noon. The one for which there have been problems was for dexamethasonne, Rx #9271529.

Dec. 18 noon: They were not sure if the doctor had made an error on the prescription regarding the concentration. They gave me what they had, which was not the same as the doctor had written down. But they said they would check and get back to me very soon. They did not get back to me.

Dec. 18 late PM: I checked back with them again but they did not have the information yet. So I proceeded to take the drug (I told them I would do this) hoping they would get back to me the next day. I also asked them to find out if I should be swallowing this drug or just rinsing my mouth with it. They did not know and said they would check. I told them to call the doctor-on-call if my own doctor was not there.

Sat. Dec. 19 PM: I realized they had forgotten to give me my official receipts (they were not in the bag they had put my prescriptions in)so, on a busy day, I made my way back to the drug store to fetch my receipts and thinking surely they will have spoken to a doctor by now. They still had not talked to a doctor. They said they sent a fax, but no one had got back to them. Again I suggested they call the doctor-on-call. They said they would call me as soon as they heard. They did NOT call the doctor-on-call.

Sun. Dec. 20: Still no word from the pharmacy. Under the circumstances as we are now 2 days from when I first went to them, I think they should have put more effort into this. But I thought SURELY they will call me the next day. They did not.

Mon. Dec. 21: Still no word from the pharmacy. I call them again and ask about the open questions: is the concentration correct? Should I be swallowing this? They didn’t know. Once again they said they would call me as soon as they heard. They said they would call the doctor’s office that afternoon. I am getting a little upset with them by now and asked them “Could you please step up your efforts here? I don’t know if I am taking the right concentration and I am not sure how to administer it!”. They did not even apologize. I asked them additionally to ask if I could get extra of this drug, since it was running out, when used as prescribed. They said they would ask about that and said they would call me when they heard and implied it was my doctor’s fault.

Tues Dec.. 22: I call my doctor’s office around noon and the nurse told me the doctor had answered them the previous day! Well no one had called me!! So I called the pharmacy back and spoke with Karen (a pharmacist). I had her look up my file and before I could say anything she advised me they had not heard from the doctor. I said that was absolutely not true, that I had just got off the phone with the doctor’s office and they had answered yesterday. I am not sure if she was lying to me or if they are just incompetent.

In any case, she eventually found the correspondence and she was able to tell me that the concentration should indeed be what the doctor had written down, and NOT what they had given me. It should have been 5% solution and I received 0.5 mg/5 ml. So she said to stop taking what I had. Secondly, should I be swallowing this? They forgot to ask. Regarding getting a refill, it was on the prescription the whole time, but they had not noticed earlier when I asked.

So as of Tues. Dec. 22, they still did not have the drug at the concentration I needed so they had to order it from elsewhere. I had no idea when I would get it. I still did not know if I should be swallowing this, and I do not trust them to ask the doctor for me at this point.

Wed. Dec.23: I finally receive the medicine in the correct concentration and with some instructions (5 days late). But when I get home I got a call from the pharmacy to tell me to ignore the fact the bottle says it has 50 ml. It actually has 100 ml!!!!! How on earth can such mistakes be made? The mind boggles. I also asked the Pharmacist at this time why they had not called the doctor-on-call as I had requested numerous times. She advised me that was because there was a charge for that. IT IS NOT UP TO THE PHARMACIST TO DECIDE HOW URGENTLY I NEED THE DRUG. THIS IS NOT HER DECISION!! SHE DECIDED ON HER OWN NOT TO CALL THE DOCTOR-ON-CALL WHILE I WAITED DAYS FOR MY PERSCRIPTION. I am completely disgusted with this cavalier attitude. Ms Pharmacist - you are just a pharmacist, you fill the prescription. You are not my doctor. And you will never ever get my business again. How dare you make these decisions on my behalf without consulting me.

On Dec. 30, I needed to order a refill and called the store. The person who answered from the pharmacy took the details. I asked when it would be ready and he said in about half an hour. I said to him “No! you have to send it out to get made!” Silence. After a minute he advised me that “it would have to be sent out to be made”. No apology, just a restatement of what I had told him. How can someone so incompetent be on the front line on the phone? He would have had me traipse down there to pick it up on the completely wrong day!. So again I asked when it would actually be ready. He said not tomorrow (31st ). Again I corrected him. I told him they could send it out rush today and get it delivered before midnight, or latest tomorrow morning. He did not seem to have this information. Sure enough it came in the morning of Dec. 31. Again I have to say – such incompetence.

Conclusion:
So you can see the problems range from general customer service problems (poor), severely inadequate communication with customer such that I do not even know how to take the medicine or if I have the right dose for 5 days; incorrectly telling me that the doctor had not been in touch (either lying or incompetence – hard to say); giving me the incorrect dosage and not following up, giving me a bottle labelled with the incorrect volume; having non-pharmacy staff answer the pharmacy phone and give out ludicrous information as to when the prescription will be ready; not calling the doctor-on-call as I had requested several times, and making the medical decision to wait with the drug instead of involving me and my doctor. Hear me – I will NEVER shop here again – certainly not for drugs and not for any other incidentals in the store either.

I suspect your staff are undertrained and overworked, but that is not my problem. I would like to think I can trust a pharmacy to not make mistakes, and to keep me as the customer informed at all times. This does not happen.
I will never deal with this pharmacy again, but I thought I should report the issues that had gone on. With a more critical health situation, they could have killed someone. I have completely lost faith in Shoppers’ Drug Mart. I hope you get your act cleared up before someone gets seriously ill from your bad practices.

I have moved prescriptions that I had with this “pharmacy” (term used loosely) over to another pharmacy.