my job

For the past few days, I have been dispensing at OPD. On the first day, I was quite amiable, greeting the patients, thanking them, smiling and so on and even saying bye and being patient to them even when they came with a sour face. Who wants to be sick, right? Well, this lasted just about a day. After that, I have turned into, what my friends described, a dispensing machine. I didn't even lift my head to look at the patient to see who they were or even bother to say hi. I just looked the prescriptions and just rattled off the instructions. Lol.. I guess it's all because of the fatigue. It was so tiring standing all day filling the prescriptions and it was a real RUSH when the prescriptions were spilling out of the rack and the waiting time was increasing. For eg, today was real hectic, the waiting time was 56 mins and the patients were 70+ at one time.. it was a shocked. I would have gone ballistic if I were the patient. The medicines are going out real fast and some patients don't even get what they are prescribed as it is already year end and we are running out of stocks. Not only that, we are out of the labels as well. Imagine how hard our lives are..the days without labels. And at the same time, we have to explain to the patients when they are puzzled as to why they have to return to OPD to get some of their drugs every two weeks now. It is really tiring to have to look at the patients and tell them and it's terrible when they don't understand the situation and keep blaming us. An argument almost broke out yesterday between a patient and a pharmacist. Patients can be REAL vulgar and rough sometimes. I even got a patient asking me why he only waited 5 minutes to see the doc and he had to wait for 30 mins to get his medicines. I just smiled and looked away pretending to look for his medicines. If only I could let him see the scene behind all those high cupboards, it was sooo hectic with people running around filling the prescriptions of at least 10 drugs. Today, I even had a patient saying that I didn't know how to read the prescriptions... =.=||| She was lucky there was a barrier between us or else, I would have bitten her head off. Seriously.. Now I know how things work, next time when I have to take medicines at the OPD, I will check my patience.

Lately, Stavudine, a type of HIV drug, is running out and we have to do some adjustments about it and I was asked to unpack the drug into 20's per pack. At first, I was happily counting away using my fingers and then suddenly my senior asked me not to do that and I should use the bottle cap to count instead. I was surprised and asked why. She said it was antiviral after all and of course there might be some weakened virus on the capsules. I was so shocked that I took a few HUGE steps back. No wonder she didn't want to do the counting as well as the others. I was sooooo scared and worried and in the end I wore a glove which I didn't think help much either. LOL.. And today, I dispensed most of the eyedrops and also the nasal sprays. And I tell you, the patients' eyes were either infected, reddish or full of pus. I kept worrying that I might be infected as well. Lol.. there was very a high chance of it, trust me. It was scary.. Now, I am starting to worry about my health.. The public and the government should appreciate us more as we are risking our lives for them.

After 2 weeks in OPD, I think I have seen enough people to last me a lifetime. LOL.. I just don't understand why some people just can't be considerate. They are taking free drugs, getting free service, ok la..maybe not totally free but the charge is just a bloody RM5 and they are still unsatisfied. They demand for more drugs or to get their prescriptions filled fully and this and that. They should really think about the patients after them who won't get enough medicines if we fill theirs fully. Is it so difficult to come to the hospital every month? I go to the hospital everyday to serve you leh.. standing and talking and screaming at the top of my lungs to be heard by you. Plus, it's not like you can keep the medicines for long, they have expiry dates too. Sigh~ I think if I haven't really worked in a place like this, I would be like them as well so all I can do now is to be patient.