Resident receives expired medicine at local clinic
Payneville resident David Ndlovu (39) says there is a lot of controversy regarding how safe expired medicine is.
He believes he is a victim of receiving tablets and ointment from the nursing staff, at the Payneville Clinic, which has passed its expiry date.
Recently one of the doctors on duty diagnosed him with flu and piles and prescribed antibiotics and ointment for the piles.
“Unfortunately I only noticed the expiry date a few days after I started taking the medicine,” says Ndlovu.
Both the tablets and ointment expired in April 2016.
He claims he went back to the clinic, but the clinic staff denied giving him the medicine.
Ekurhuleni Metro’s mayoral spokesman, Zweli Dlamini says the dispensary of medication is managed to the following standard procedures:
• Drugs received from the pharmaceutical depot are checked and those medication with an expiry date less than six months are returned to the depot.
• The metro claims the principle of First Expiry First Out is applied to ensure that no expired medication is kept at the facility.
• Re-order levels are used to avoid stocking of medication.
• Stock taking is conducted monthly to monitor the movement of medicine.
• Medication in the pharmacy Medication is labelled according to the date and year of expiry and prioritised accordingly.
Red indicates medication expires in 2016, while blue indicates it expires in 2017 and the yellow only expires in 2018.
The antibiotics prescribed is a frequently used antibiotic and according to Dlamini, is on the Tracer Drug Item List, which is checked regularly for availability as well as expiry dates.
“The clinic staff checked to see if Ndlovu received the alleged expired medicine, but found it difficult to trace his records or the file to check the issuing of said expired medicine.
“It would be beneficial for Ndlovu to contact the clinic to launch a full investigation,” says Dlamini.
