My mother has been in a SNF for less than a week. She was on hospice at home and is taking a ton of heavy-duty medications. When they transferred her in she revoked hospice in order to get rehab, and there was a delay in getting her medications from the pharmacy, so she missed several doses. She was freaking out and in pain, but I assured her that this was only because it was the first day and they needed to wait for her meds to be delivered. After that things should run smoothly...
However, there have been problems almost daily since then. One of her meds took 4 days to arrive, and now yesterday they were out of two of her meds and they weren't delivered with the pharmacy shipment last night. One of these is a benzodiazepine that she has been on for decades that can lead to seizures and death if stopped abruptly. The nursing home says there is nothing they can do, it's the pharmacy's fault, which I understand, but at the same time this seems completely inexcusable. I have seen her medication list and I know these meds are still being ordered by the SNF doctors, but they physically don't have them to dispense. Makes it very difficult to get my mom to relax and accept her situation, not to mention being medically dangerous. Anyone else have experience with this or how to handle it?
My mom was transferred on a Friday afternoon from the hospital to a rehab. The absolute worst time. Her pain meds were not on hand. She had a fractured back. Meds will be here at midnight they say. Didn’t arrive. After the second time, I ended up going home and getting some. Of course they will tell you that you can’t do that. Then when they still didn’t show up they asked me to. The desk nurse seemed terrified to call her superiors for help.
And yes, I had staff people come by so they could check the box but did nothing to resolve the problems. It was a nightmare. Through their ineptness , several days later she wound up back in ICU. I refused to allow her to go back to the SNF rehab.
She went in rehab at the hospital. No problems there. I always got my mom into rehabs that were not part of a SNF after that experience. I’m sure that’s not always possible and I did have to push but it worked much better. Of course that was rehab and not a hospice patient.
But surely the NH should have an alternate source when the primary doesn’t work and even the pharmacy should have a back up or place to expedite the medication from. Most large organizations can’t deviate from their standard practices easily. Their system works (to their satisfaction) most of the time and that’s good enough for them. I’m on a rant here but I do understand how you feel. And as I think a true hissy fit is spontaneous and can’t be taught, I don’t have an answer for you. Just my sympathy.
But I agree that pitching a fit may be the only way to ensure all meds are available.
I might add that we live in the Las Vegas area and the meds were requested from a pharmacy in Los Angles and Luz never ran out of meds.
It might be time to report this to the county or state responsible for oversight of the facility.