Downing's Views
John Downing has been an author, reporter, editor and columnist . He has made regular appearances on radio and TV. His main field is politics but he has written about everything under (and in) the Sun.
OHIP'S GALLING DRUG RULES
ALWAYS COMPLICATE THINGS
I have never taken more pills.
It seems I get a new prescription every year.
Which makes me popular at Shoppers Drug Mart when I'm not bitching about a problem in reordering.
Take the latest example. I see I'm low on something called ezetimibe so I call in and reorder. Two days later, I go through the normal hassle of trying to park near the Shoppers at Royal York and Bloor and Mary runs in to collect my order. They have nothing for me.
Return home and phone. This time the story changes to that I tried to reorder while I still had 10 pills and the government won't pay until you have less than that number.
Now Mary and I run into this all the time even with such a minor maintenance drug as ezetimibe which reduces the amount of cholesterol absorbed by the body and isn't to my knowledge a hot item in the drug world.
I have taken allopurinol for two decades to end vicious attacks of gout no matter how carefully I ate. Heaven help me if I try to get these pills before the government-appointed time. Yet allopurinol is a drug that people take for years and isn't sold in dark doorways. How about enough to last three months.
I would like to know what OHIP bureaucrat is responsible for these arbitrary rules on when you can reorder minor drugs which are not on anyone's hit list of hallucinatory delights.
I would drown them in pills and forms, or have their parents lecture them on getting a reasonable number of minor pills on each visit.
Now once a year, if you talk nicely about Barry Phillips, the veteran pharmacist who presides genially over his Drug Mart empire in central Etobicoke, and offer up your first born into servitude along with a second mortgage on the house, you can play snowbird and wing off to Florida or some warmer clime with even, heavens, a couple of months of pills.
But reordering drugs goes on month after month after month, not just once a year, and there are many people trying to grab a little order out of the chaos by putting together the daily allotment of pills two weeks in advance.
There are new people surfing above 65 every week, and while all of us appreciate the drug help we get grudgingly from OHIP, we really do want to reduce the number of trips to even such a fine establishment as the Shoppers Drug Mart in the heart of the Kingsway.
After all, waiting cabs cluster around the Royal York subway station like bees around the hive, and there is a steady flow of traffic behind the drug store on the one-way lane - with dumb drivers regularly going the wrong way.
We will have to move the Tim Hortons to get any help from the cops.
I doubt if the drug scene is going to explode if drug stores are allowed to renew a prescription while, heavens, the patients actually has more than 10, but our medicrats say they know best. That is one reason why our medical spending takes more than 40% of the provincial budget because of all the extra steps they insist are necessary.
Posted by John Downing at 12:07 PM
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John Downing
John has been an author, reporter, editor, blogger and columnist. He has appeared regularly on radio and TV. His field is politics but he writes about everything. A veteran of the Telegram and Sun newspapers, he has been active in many community organizations.
More than 50 years of writing and volunteering
John has a Ryerson degree, where he was student president, Ryersonian editor, historian and lecturer and served on many board committees. He also studied at U of T.
He was editor of the Whitehorse Star in 1957, and reporter and editor on the Toronto Telegram from 1958 to 1971. He was an original daily columnist and associate editor with the Toronto Sun, and the Editor from 1985 to 1997.
He has been president of the Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto Press Club and Press Clubs of Canada, and director/ governor of the Toronto Outdoor Art Show, Runnymede Health Care Centre, Exhibition Place, Toronto conservation authority, Ontario Safety League, Royal Winter Fair, and Canadian Sports Hall of Fame.
He has writing and service awards from the Toronto police, OSL, B'nai Brith, conservation authority, St. John's Ambulance, Governor General and Toronto council.
He has contributed to books on the CNE, outdoor art show and Ontario politics, ghost written two biographies, and written for Time, Macleans and other magazines. He has been a commentator/ panelist on most Toronto television and radio stations.
See John Downing Biography blog.
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