Illiterate care workers and pills do not mix, warns care home boss

The manager of an old-age home in Sha Tin warned yesterday that more community pharmacies were needed urgently to protect patients.

Giving his name only as Mr Leung, he said: "Most health workers in private old-age homes cannot read English, and some are even illiterate. How can they handle medicines single-handedly? They should only have a subordinate role in drug administration."

He added that the high turnover of staff, high rents and inflation, which were driving up costs, were making the issue of dispensing drugs more of a problem.

Bella Luk Po-chu, executive director of Helping Hand, a non-government organisation that runs a home for the elderly, said the labour shortage in the care industry and the heavy workload that staff are burdened with was to blame for many of the mistakes made when dispensing drugs.

"Many elderly residents suffer from hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, orthopaedic issues and dementia. More than 70 per cent of the 350 people in our old-age home take at least six types of medication every day.

"It would take one nurse more than three hours every day to prepare and verify the medicines, and another four hours to administer them to residents at different times of the day," Luk said.