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certificate ?

M

merlinsmate

Member
Messages
5
Hello everyone....
Sorry if this in the wrong place and is so long...

My 23 year old son has just been diagnosed as Type 1 and is coming to terms with it all but seems to get all conflicting advice from Doctors/clinic/hospital.
Last Thursday was a bad day.He has always been below weight for height BUT had been getting thinner for ages and over the last month he lost about a stone and a half...down to 8 1/2 stone for a 6 footer.With a raging thirst and dehydration he was vomitting for 15 hours solid when we got to the Docs (after they said it would be days to get to see one).....they tried to put us off so I said I would go to A and E then so they told us to wait...it still took an hour to see someone even though he had 2 glasses of water and spent most of the time vomitting.
The doc got him an instant appointment at the (Name of Hospital removed) in Birmingham....but it took another 2 hours to get some Insulin/fluids in to him as they had to fill in so many forms.
The Diabetes nurse said he was minutes from the I.C.U.
Hospital was a mixture of excellence and being pathetic as they would ask HIM what he had had.
He went to the clinic on Monday and got a form to let the Docs know his prescription requirements....but it seems they have NEVER seen one before and we just went to collect the prescription and they have NOT done a thing with it yet...be ready at 5 tomorrow ...but we will not hold our breath.

ANYWAY MY QUESTION IS.......are we correct in thinking ALL the presciption stuff is free and how do we prove it at the chemist....DO WE GET A CERTIFICATE/CARD to show them.

Thanks
Keith (DAD)...the family Taxi.
 
Yes Everything is Free to inusulin dependent diabetics. As the GP for the certificate/card.
Hana
 
I'm T2 but i had to get a form from my doctors, which they sent off for me and the card came thorugh the post. It didn't take long to come.

The pharmacist gave me the prescription free anyway, I ticked the box on the back and they reckoned I wouldn't be getting Metformin if I wasn't diabetic.
 
anniep said:
I'm T2 but i had to get a form from my doctors, which they sent off for me and the card came thorugh the post. It didn't take long to come.

The pharmacist gave me the prescription free anyway, I ticked the box on the back and they reckoned I wouldn't be getting Metformin if I wasn't diabetic.
Click to expand...

Well as it turned out both of the above applied ...in the end !!

Picked up prescriptions at Docs.
Travelled to boots.....told it would be £38.
Said it's for a Diabetic and free.....told we would need to show a certificate,and to get it from the Docs.
Went back to Docs and after raised voices they finally gave us a form to fill in and return to them for the Doc to sign then we to send it off.
Went back to Docs again to pay for stuff but of course they did not have all the medication and to come back tomorrow.Oh one of the staff said that they thought these items were free anyway.
Back to Boots today ready to pay but it was yet another assistant and ended up not paying...kept quiet and got out of chemist very quickly.

All this saga tells me is that despite the generally good treatment the associated system could be made a lot more patient friendly where you are given all the information at the outset and not leaving it to the patient to weedle it out bit by bit from the various sections involved.
A classic case of no liason between everyone involved.
Thanks for all you good advice.
Keith
 
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