Canadian Doctor recycles prescription drugs to the homeless

A prominent Canadian doctor has begun to recycle unused prescription drugs to homeless people in Ottawa because he says they could not afford them otherwise, CBC News has learned. Dr. Jeff Turnbull, chief of staff at the Ottawa Hospital in Ottawa, acknowledges the practise is controversial but says it is one way to ensure that homeless people get the medication they desperately need.

Dr. Jeff Turnbull

He and Dr. Ron MacCormick, an oncologist in Sydney, N.S., want provincial governments to establish regulations that would guide doctors who want to recycle unused prescription drugs that would otherwise be thrown out.

“I think it’s a common sense issue where we could come up with common sense guidelines to direct this,” Turnbull said. Turnbull, who will become president of the Canadian Medical Association later this year, gives the unused drugs to patients at an inner city health centre in Ottawa. He said his patients include people who have lived on the streets for years, people who don’t have a drug plan or who don’t have a health card. The medication that is handed out is not yet expired.

“We make sure that they are the right medications and the right dose, that they haven’t been opened and are completely new and sealed.”

MacCormick, who works in an area of Cape Breton where there are high cancer rates and low incomes, said he completely supports the call for provincial regulations on the issue and the need to recycle prescription drugs.

“I would do whatever I could to get that drug into their hands and not let technical or technicalities get in the way of me getting that drug,” he said.

In 37 U.S. states, unused prescription drugs are legally recycled. In Iowa, for example, there is a redistribution centre where unused prescription drugs are sorted and screened and then given to people in need. David Freis of the Iowa Prescription Drug Corporation said the redistribution centre makes sense.

“We shipped out over $650,000 US worth of drugs to these clinics, which provide drugs to individuals. So a lot of pills got into people’s mouths that would not have gotten in there without the program,” he said.

But according to the Ontario College of Pharmacists, the Drug and Pharmacies Regulation Act prohibits the redispensing of drugs that have been returned to a pharmacy once the dispensed drug has left the pharmacy. In a statement, the college said: “This protects the public from potential harm in receiving a drug that may have been tampered with or altered in some way, and is based on the premise that all patients — no matter what their financial status or abilities — deserve drugs that are of high quality; this cannot be assured where returned drugs are “recycled” or re-dispensed to patients.”

Health Canada said the issue falls under the jurisdiction of the provinces and territories. The Food and Drugs Act applies to the sale of drug products, not the dispensing of them. It said the dispensing of approved drugs donated by patients to a doctor or pharmacist would fall under the practice of medicine and pharmacy, which is the responsibility of the provinces and territories.

Its the simple things Folks, that can make real differences…

Rise in NI AIDS cases linked to foreign travel

The volume of HIV and Aids cases is expected to increase significantly and sexual health consultant Dr Raymond Maw said official figures under-estimated fresh diagnoses by about a third. Most heterosexual people have been exposed to the virus outside the UK but homosexuality has also been blamed.

A total of 65 new cases were diagnosed in 2007. The tally has been increasing since 2001.

Dr Naresh Chada, senior medical officer at the Department of Health, told a conference at Stormont sexually transmitted diseases posed a major challenge. “Some of the preliminary figures for 2008 suggest that there would be quite a considerable increase on the previous years but those won’t be official until the end of the year,” he said.

“It is difficult for us to say why those figures are going up. There seems to be a mixture of issues, one of the continuing infection of men who have sex with men but there is also an increase in heterosexual HIV.”

Approximately 250 people are receiving anti-retroviral therapy which can cost over £1 million from the drugs budget. Dr Chada added: “Compared to other parts of the world and in the rest of the UK our rates of HIV are somewhat low but it is very much on the increase. “HIV/Aids is a huge burden in terms of actual resources that are used.”

The Department’s funding for genito-urinary treatment was branded a “sticking plaster” by Dr Maw.

He said: “We just have not had the investment in sexual health services and this is known by everybody from the Department of Health down. “We have had some recent investment which is welcome but it is certainly not adequate to meet the needs of our population and it is considerably less than has been given in the rest of the UK.”

Marlene Kinghan from the Children’s Commissioners’ office said a number of services were not fit for purpose or covering the level of need. We currently have four (genito-urinary) clinics however combined they are open for less than 40 hours per week, some which operate on an appointment system others on a drop in basis,“ she said.

“How are young people, some of whom who are still in full time education, expected to access a clinic that is only open three hours per week during the day?

“The approach to delivering relationship and sexual education is neither comprehensive nor consistent in schools across Northern Ireland. Research on this issue shows the quality of sexual education depends on the school the young person attends and indeed the approach taken by individual teachers.”

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0216/breaking64.htm