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5:30 pm, November 13th, 2025 - 7 comments
Categories: Daily review -
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Daily review is also your post.
This provides Standardistas the opportunity to review events of the day.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Don’t forget to be kind to each other …
I am curious as to how others in these parts find pharmacies and getting prescriptions filled.
After her recent turn, Mum is on a few new meds and I have been picking them up. The pharmacy is disorganised and slow. Scripts can take two or three days to fill. I have just heard of one gentlemen being told three days for anti-biotics for an infection he was dealing with.
Is this just a localised issue or more widespread? I do comment often about this being Chris Luxon's New Zealand.
It is possible I am going to the pharmacy that recently, tragically messed up baby Bellamere Duncan’s phosphate drugs. That might explain delays – double checking and loss of senior staff.
Whether the public have a right to know which pharmacy it was is another gnarly issue…
I believe you and I may be from around about the same part of the country, gsays.
The local pharmacy I go to is generally pretty good, but my problem is that the supply chain for my ADHD medication is so buggered it's a crapshoot whether or not they actually have anything to fill my prescription with.
Might just be coincidence, but the go-to community pharmacy for me, and more recently Dad, in Palmy has always been excellent. Only one lapse in ~20 years, when I was given someone else's medication – no harm done. Recently I get the impression that staff turnover has increased and that they are under greater time pressure.
Just one more thing to worry about – checking your prescription meds after collection.
We've never had supply issues at our local pharmacy, but then we live in a town with a higher average age than many, and stocks have to be kept topped-up else there'd soon be a major outcry. Scripts for our regular meds are filled the same day, and repeats can be ordered beforehand by phone, so no waiting around. Good communications too – whenever Pharmac has decided to fund a different brand of something, we're always told at pick-up about the substitution. Missing items have been very rare – only twice in about 18 years. But we always check before exiting the premises, just to be on the safe side.
I've found my pharmacy itself (suburban Auckland) and the staff (both front of house and professional) to be excellent – however, there is a long history of the script being transmitted from the GP being lost, diverted or strayed.
The frustration with the tech systems seems to be a well-practiced theme at the pharmacy counter – so I'm not alone.
This has not been experienced by my Mum – who's collecting a standard suite of prescriptions and repeats every few weeks – but my one-off prescriptions have a strong tendency to go walk-about. They do turn up eventually – sometimes getting the notification just as I've arrived home 🙁
But, I've now learned to collect the script as I leave the GP – rather than rely in it being sent electronically.
The other major issue is the fact that we seem to regularly 'run out' (as a country) of medications. The HRT patch issue has been an ongoing slow-scale disaster. When they say 'stock levels may vary' they mean that you might have to call 100 pharmacies in Auckland to find any stock, and drive for up to an hour. Or, alternatively, only get 1/4 of your prescription filled – and good luck with getting the rest in a timely fashion.
Our local pharmacy is great. The Medical clinic is next door so they fax your script from one to the other and it is ready in minutes.
There are occasions when deliveries of drugs are unreliable – on my last visit one of the drugs was not available in the prescribed dose, so instead of one pill I have to take 2 of the ones that were available – 2X 16mg rather than the usual 1X 36mg.
Thanks all.
It would seem to be local rather than a wider malaise.
@Drowsy, there are more and more of us making the trip to Palmy for meds.