Question

Online Written response to ethics/legal/policy issues

Below is a hypothetical scenario. Please discuss the scenario from an ethical, legal and policy point of view (250 words each, total 750 words).

Scenario

You’re the pharmacist in charge of a community pharmacy in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. The pharmacy is in an area where there are a lot of older people who are aged 65 years or older. Many of them are retired and are of a low socio-economic status.

The owner, who recently purchased the pharmacy, comes in one day. He pulls you aside and asks you to help increase sales by enforcing generic substitutions on all patients unless the ‘No brand substitution allowed’ box is ticked. He also says that there is no need to always order the same brand of medications and that you should only order whatever is the cheapest.

Immediately after your conversation with the owner, Mrs Jones comes in. She has been a regular customer for over 10 years and is on a regular medication for her blood pressure. The owner talks with her and tells her that he is going to “do her a favour” by giving her the generic medication this time, which is “just the same as the one she normally gets, just less expensive”. You can see that Mrs Jones reluctant. He also asks you and all pharmacists to sell at least one product when conducting a referral to help customers in the mean time before they see a doctor. He insists that ‘no one should walk out of the pharmacy empty handed’.

You have a lot of face masks in stock in the pharmacy which you ordered prior to COVID19. The local clinics and nursing homes have been purchasing masks for their staff and patients from you. You’re about to post a box of masks to a local nursing home that has already been paid for, when the owner calls you and tells you to stop the sales of all face masks and tell all customers you have sold out. He then asks you to post the remaining face masks to a business partner, who apparently has been selling them online. You explain to him the current order you’re about to send has already been paid for, to which he responds ‘Well, tell them too bad and we are out. We can refund them. I can sell it for ten times the price online’.

The following day you see a prescription for oxycodone, a strong opioid medication that is S8. You notice that the doctor’s signature is missing, and you question the legitimacy of the script. You try to call up the clinic, but it is closed. The customer who brought in the script says he is a friend of the pharmacy owner and he gets it dispensed here all the time. Looking up his dispensing history you notice that the owner has always been the one dispensing it. You then receive a phone call from the owner who tells you that the script is perfectly fine, and you can dispense it.

A week later the owner comes back. He pulls you aside and tells you that he has been keeping a close eye on sales figures and that your companion sales figures are the lowest. The owner tells you that you need to ‘up your game’ and that there are “plenty of young pharmacists who would like your job – you can leave if you don’t like it”.

Answer 1