Lost in medicine: Mrs Brown’s story

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My name is Mrs Brown and I’m getting on a bit

Also slightly worse for wear, I really must admit

Nothing works quite how it ought

So my doctor’s help is often sought

Every month the pharmacy, delivers lots of pills

The doctor says I need them to treat my many ills

Boxes of every shape and size

Pour from the bags before my eyes

Which ones to take and when and how

Is something I must ponder now?

The printing on the labels is so very small

I can scarcely make out any words at all

It’s teatime, so I know that a tablet’s due

But do I take the brown one or is it the blue?

To help me I was given an special tray

And my tablet boxes — were taken all away

Just pop out your tablets, they said — as if!

With arthritic fingers all swollen and stiff

It causes me such terrible strife

I attack the blisters with a knife

So then they sent in carers, four times every day

Just to pop the tablets out of that wretched tray

Then one day a carer said, “I’ve heard of something new

The Frail and Complex Patient Team, they’ll know what to do”

I told them my problems when they came to call

And they said they’d sort them — no trouble at all

To get tablets from trays they had just the job

And soon handed over a useful pill ‘bob’

They reviewed all my medicines, with a bit of a frown

And said, “let’s see if your doctor can cut this list down”

They call it optimisation — or some such fancy name

But if it means fewer tablets — then I’m certainly game

To do the deprescribing took some working out

But we teamed up together and sorted it out

At last I can manage my medicines and their pack

It’s wonderful to have my independence back.

Michele Rowland Jones, interface care pharmacist, Shropshire CCG.

Michele’s piece placed fifth in our 2018 writing competition ‘Future Pharmacist’. Read more entries here.

 

 

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Citation
The Pharmaceutical Journal, Lost in medicine: Mrs Brown's story;Online:DOI:10.1211/PJ.2018.20205118

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