Emily Beardall
THANK you to Alison and Ian for sharing their stories in the article: Non-adherence and the things that people don’t tell us about their medicines! even though it’s not their names.
There are some valuable lessons to be learnt from them. I was appalled to read that Alison’s GP asked her if she was “trying to collect illnesses”. Unfortunately, I’ve had similar experiences as a patient over the years with my M.E. and other health problems.
I hear the same from many of the people with chronic illnesses on social media. If someone has been spoken to like that when all they were doing was being an empowered patient then really, it’s no wonder people hide their medication problems and health concerns.
This can lead to complete avoidance of health services altogether. I fear the result of this could be that patients with genuine health problems may be putting up with health problems which could be improved.
I like to think (and really hope) that fellow pharmacists are much less judgemental. I would like to see pharmacists working together to with, and empower, patients to help them get the best outcomes.
This is just my own experience.
Emily Beardall is a volunteer pharmacist & research officer with @actionforme
Follow Emily @crochetkid75