Are Hong Kong public hospitals giving out too much medications when some get wasted?
- After medication prescribed by a public hospital was put up for sale on the internet, the Post takes a look at the system and where improvements can be made
A recently reported case of a merchant selling laxative medication from a Hong Kong public hospital on online shopping platform HKTVmall raised the question of whether some patients are getting more drugs than they need.
The Post looks into the problem of drug wastage and how unused medications are handled.
1. How much medication is handed out?
Patients, especially those with stable chronic diseases, are usually given enough medication to last six months or even one year, according to Dr Herbert Kwok Wan-chun, vice-president of the Public Doctors’ Association.
Kwok said doctors usually are not allowed to prescribe medication in quantities that last for more than a year, except for some very stable patients, such as those with sleep apnoea who are doing generally well with the help of a machine but would need medication for a chronic runny nose condition.
While doctors could prescribe drugs to those patients for two years, Kwok, a specialist in respiratory medicine, said hospital pharmacies would usually give out the medications in quantities to last no longer than one year due to expiry concerns. Patients would need to collect a new batch of medication a year later.
The Hospital Authority in June pledged a thorough review on the drug prescription mechanism after a patient was prescribed 425 days of medication following a nine-day stay in a public hospital.
