Saturday 10 May 2008

Pharmacy in the colonies.

Based on a whole five days experience, a lot of which was taken up with explaining where the toilets are, and where I hang my coat, I can safely say that pharmacy in Aotearoa is 240,000,000 times better than it is in the shitpit that is the Rhondda.

Down here, as I understand it, there is this strange and mysterious beast known as the PHARMAC committee that evaluate each drug on the basis of price and usefulness, and then decides if it is "allowed" to be prescribed. So, for example, the only ACE inhibitors here are cilazapril or quinalapril, neither of which are used to any great degree at home, where there are several hundred ACE inhibitors. Also, there's none of this " I WANT LOSEC!!1111I'M ALLERGIC TO OMEPRAZOLE111!!!1" shit here, you get what's subsidised by the government, and lump it. So far, I think it's a good system.

Every pharmacist I've met has said to me
"So you worked in retail did you?"
Me: "Aye, two years"(not wishing to say anything controversial, on account of being a new chap)
"It's shit, isn't it"
Me: "FUCK AYE, it's like scrubbing my scrotum with sandpaper."

So that's good. So far, so good. It's very quiet though, dispensary wise, so a lot of afternoons are spent warding, scratching, gossiping, or compiling a list of TOP 5 WOMEN/MEN YOU WOULD HAVE IF YOU WERE GAY. Sweet.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you're living the life then.

Not jealous one bit.

Nuh huh.

TCP.

Anonymous said...

so.....what are the top 5 women the women would have if they were gay? I want to know

red_one said...

you'll probably have discovered this .. but it's not so much dictating what is 'allowed' to be prescribed ... PHARMAC dictate what is funded. Any other drug may be prescribed - you'd just be hardpressed to find someone that will pay the full price for it (unless it's Viagra, Cialis or Propecia ... or Yasmin for the girls)

The Welsh Pharmacist said...

Aye, of course you're correct, that's what I meant to say, really.