End to long waiting at pharmacy

Over the past two years, Frere Hospital has been working on a strategy to reduce waiting times at their outpatient pharmacy, and this has finally paid off as seen by the Saturday Dispatch when it visited the pharmacy recently.

In previous years the newspaper was inundated with calls from patients complaining about having to wait three to four hours for their prescriptions, some left the institution without getting any medication and some who, having travelled long distances, had to find overnight accommodation to try their luck again the next day.

These long waits, along with staff shortages (in 2013 the Dispatch reported that of 18 pharmacists required, the facility only had eight) together with a flawed referral system, meant an overhaul was required.

Today, on a normal day a patient can expect to wait 45 to 60 minutes for their medication. On a day that is before or after a public holiday the time may go up to about 90 minutes. The pharmacy does not close for tea breaks or lunch.

The Dispatch made an unannounced visit to the facility on Wednesday June 17, a day after Youth Day, to test it.

I joined the queue at the pharmacy pretending to be a patient. There were 30 people ahead of me, waiting to submit their files to a pharmacist who checks their scripts. Another assistant dispenses the medication. I joined the queue at 10.15am.

I noticed there were about seven people, presumably pharmacists, assistant pharmacists and interns, behind the counter at any given time. There was a system at play; a patient’s file would be requested, the pharmacist would take the file and go to the computer system, a few minutes later another pharmacist would call out the patient’s name for collection.

The security guard was also vigilant in terms of ensuring the line went smoothly.

The entire process proceeded like a well-oiled machine. At 11.33 I left the queue as it would have been my turn to be called by the pharmacist for a file I did not possess. By 11.45am, the patient after me in the queue had already received her medication.

It took a total of one-and-a-half hours to go through the system on one of their busiest days.

The following day the Dispatch met hospital CEO Dr Rolene Wagner, the responsible pharmacist Sammy Meintjies and the director of pharmaceuticals at the facility, Miriam Ndwandwe, to find out how they managed to turn things around at the outpatient pharmacy.

Meintjies said: “We realised that there was a problem and we needed to come up with a number of strategies. One of the strategies was that we knew that we needed to go electronic, computerising the system. Secondly we needed to look at our chronic patients to see if we could down refer them.

Thirdly we realised we were seeing a lot of primary healthcare patients in what was actually a tertiary setting and so we looked at strategies on how to get them back to the primary health sector to collect their medication.

“We also looked at ways to prioritise certain patients, such as ambulance patients and out-of-town patients who we didn’t want leaving without their medication. We decided we wanted to release those patients before 2pm so they can at least get back onto the road,” he said.

Changes were also implemented in how the pharmacy runs. More computers were assigned to the department.

Four pharmacists, two interns and three pharmacy assistants work in one shift.

Rotation of staff, to avoid certain staff members working in the same pressure area on an ongoing basis, was another strategy. Staff is rotated between outpatient, inpatient and down-referral.

Said Wagner: “For me as a CEO it’s actually comforting to know that when we make a decision on the executive level, it actually happens on the ground because of the type of managers we have on the team.”

Ndwandwe and Meintjies also do the job when needed. Ndwandwe even delivers the medication for their down referral patients herself. She also observes the experience of patients in the queues to better improve quality.

Patients spoken to all expressed satisfaction with the new system, especially the shortened waiting times.

Curtis Accom, who has been using the pharmacy for three years, bringing his son for his medication, said he had noticed a change in waiting times, though he is exempt from queuing because of his son.

“With children they are actually very good, they help you quicker and they are very helpful when you collect your medicine,” he said.

Akhona Tisi has only been coming to the pharmacy a few months after sustaining an injury. He said he waited less than an hour for his treatment, and he had never seen cause to complain about waiting times at the facility.

Patricia Oelofse said she waited 20 minutes to submit her folder and did not foresee waiting for her medicine longer than 10 minutes.

“I used to come here with my mother about three years ago for her treatment monthly. We would wait three to four hours sometimes, the shortest time would be two hours,” she said.

Thandiwe Qavile has been using the pharmacy since 1994.

“The waiting time at the dispensary has completely changed. .

“There’s been a great improvement. Since the year started the waiting period has really decreased, we don’t know what happened, but whoever fixed it did an incredible job.”— vuyiswav@dispatch.co.za