No Refund Means No Refund

Parent called up to ask if there is a refund for 2 bottles of syrup that she collected for her child as the doctor has stopped the medication and she has no use for the medication anymore. She had called up the main pharmacy and was informed that the hospital has a no refund policy should the doctor discontinue the medication. Nevertheless she must have thought I would give a different answer so she decided to call up my pharmacy, but unfortunately for her I gave the exact same answer. I mean, it is the hospital's policy if different sections of the pharmacy give you different answers then something must be really wrong with us.

Anyway, I tried explaining that there are only 2 conditions for refund:
1. Patient develops known side effects with the medicaiton.
2. Patient develops allergy with the medication.
In both cases, the doctor would still have to examine the patient and write a memo saying they've examined the patient and have concluded it is either case 1 or 2 before we can actually do a refund.

Besides, for patients' safety sake when we take back refunded medicine our hospital chooses not to resell to another patient because we cannot guarantee that the first patient has kept the medicine in good condition. The parent insisted she kept the medicine in good condition, but that is absolutely not the point here. Putting yourself in other people's shoes, how would you feel if you were to receive medicine that another person has brought home for over 6 months, and you really have no idea what kind of condition the medicine is stored in except the words of somebody who is desperate for a refund. As pharmacists we tell patients to keep the medicine away from direct sunlight and heat, but frankly speaking, Singapore's weather is not ideal for storage of medicine no matter how away from direct sunlight and heat you are keeping your medicine unless you're telling me your house is air-conditioned at 21 degrees C 24/7.

Anyway back to the story, she then said she had to write off $300+ worth of medicine which I find puzzling as each bottle only costs $30+. When I told her the price of one bottle, she insisted I got the price wrong. Got really pissed off with her by then, told her to check her receipts and she got snotty and said she had already submitted her receipts for claims. I mean what can I say, I had the computer right in front of me and I was looking at the price from the system. If she chooses not to believe me I am not going to try and convince her; she did not sound like she wanted convincing anyway.

In such cases whereby we cannot do a refund, we usually would offer to help them arrange for their medicine to be donated to needy patients. I have personally encountered parents who generously donated their unused medicine (we are talking about 20+ bottles of medicine NOT just 2 bottles) to needy patients and were really understanding when we explained that there is a no refund policy. This idiotic parent had to distort the whole offer by saying the hospital is doing charity work with public money. That is really funny, I did not recall forcing her to donate the medicine so what was she so uppity about.

I know it is unfair that the doctor had stopped the treatment and patients are left with unused medicine, but hospitals cannot absorb these kind of costs. If the public really wants the hospitals to absorb such costs they can expect healthcare costs to increase tremendously to cover for such loss in income as the hospitals cannot afford to go into the red every financial year. There is no such thing as Progress Package for the hospitals when they go into the red.

She then complain that she had to pay the full price of the medicine and nobody ever asked her if she wanted to only collect part of the medicine nor inform her that there is a no refund policy. Big time lair (that's what I hate about Singaporean patients). She mentioned earlier that she submitted the receipts for claims so how did she suddenly end up paying for the medicine. WE DO NOT FORCE PEOPLE AT KNIFE POINT TO COLLECT ALL THEIR MEDICINE. The choice is always the patient's to collect all, or part of it, or none at all. If you got all the moolah and wanted to collect all the medicine we cannot be wasting time convincing you not to collect the medicine can we. As for no mention of no refund policy, pls read the receipts. It is printed on every single page that there is no refund for medicine. Oh, how forgetful of me, she submitted the receipts for claims hadn't she.

The worse thing was she threatened to write to the papers. Her exact words were, "There are many ways to get to the media okay, and I hope they publish this so that other patients know what it means to collect medicines from your hospital." What can I say, I agree there are many ways to get to the masses, and I am doing it one step ahead of her by publishing on my blog while hers wait in line for approval.

To end this post, I just want to ask the Singaporeans out there:
Do you go to Guardian or Unity pharmacy to buy medicine, use it for a week or two and then go back to the pharmacy to ask for refund for the remaining unused medicine? If you've done it before, be thankful that pharmacies are run by civilised people who do not chase you out with a broom.