Inspired by a ProPublica story in April
that described how nursing homes and their pharmacies nationwide throw
away hundreds of tons of valuable medicines — and how one Iowa nonprofit
successfully recycles them — two states are working to create similar
programs.
Other states, including Vermont, are exploring the idea as well.
“All that medicine is perfectly good and perfectly safe,” said Rep.
Nicholas Duran, D-Miami, who co-sponsored a bill in Florida modeled on
the Iowa program. “Rather than being burned up, it could be put back to
some great use.”
ProPublica’s story detailed how the nursing home industry dispenses
medication a month at a time, but then is forced to destroy it after
patients pass away, stop using it or move out. Some send the drugs to
massive regional incinerators or flush them down the toilet, creating
environmental concerns.
In Iowa, a program called SafeNetRx retrieves the excess medication,
inspects it and dispenses it for free to needy patients. Almost 80,000
Iowans have used SafeNetRx to obtain medication — from cheap antibiotics
to cancer drugs worth thousands of dollars per month.
The state funds the program for about $600,000 a year and in fiscal
2016 it recovered and distributed drugs valued at about $3.4 million.
This year it’s on pace to hand out more than $6 million of reclaimed
medicine.
Many states have laws that allow the donation of drugs, but they
don’t have programs that get the drugs safely from nursing homes to
those who need them.
After reading ProPublica’s story, Duran, who is also the executive
director of the Florida Association of Free and Charitable Clinics, said
he visited a long-term care pharmacy and saw firsthand how much
valuable medication was being destroyed.
The people at Polaris Pharmacy Services, he said, told him they’d
love to donate the medicine, but can’t legally. The new law would create
a program to transfer the drugs so they can be dispensed free to
patients, he said.
About $400,000 worth of the drugs Polaris dispenses each month are
returned because they’ve been stopped for some reason, said David
Rombro, the pharmacy’s chief executive. The drugs come back in the same
sterile packaging, untainted and unexpired.
Polaris can get credit for about half the unused medication, but the
remaining drugs — worth about $2.5 million a year — must be taken away
for incineration, he said. Based on the size of his pharmacy and how
many others exist in Florida, he estimates about $50 million worth are
destroyed annually statewide.
“It’s perfectly good medication,” Rombro said. “There are people that need drugs that don’t have them.”
In New Hampshire, radio show host Arnie Arnesen became excited about
the idea after featuring the ProPublica story and the executive director
of SafeNetRx on “The Attitude with Arnie Arnesen.” She pitched the drug
donation idea to New Hampshire Sen. Dan Feltes, D-Concord, urging him
to make it happen in New Hampshire.
“This makes so much sense,” she recalled saying to the senator. “It even fits in with our thrifty values.”
Feltes is now the sponsor of a New Hampshire bill that would create a
commission to research how to start a drug donation program like
Iowa’s.
Vermont leaders also say the Iowa program would be a good fit for
their state, where the “ethos” favors recycling, being environmentally
conscious and improving access to medication, said Meg
O’Donnell, director of government relations at The University of Vermont
Medical Center. There’s a chance Vermont would even hire SafeNetRx in
Iowa to run its program, she said.
“We can say pretty confidently there are some real opportunities,” O’Donnell said.
It costs money for nursing homes or pharmacies to properly dispose of
the unused medication, Rombro said. Polaris employs two people full
time to process the excess drugs, and pays about $5,000 a month to
incinerate them.
Other companies and nursing homes simply flush them and trace amounts
of pharmaceuticals have been found in water supplies throughout the
country. In Florida, wastewater is treated and then pumped into the
aquifer, or used to water lawns and golf courses, said Jay Sheehan,
senior vice president of Woodard & Curran, a company that runs two
utilities in the state. But Sheehan said the wastewater is not treated
for possible pharmaceutical contamination.
“We have a problem and we need to collectively address it,” Sheehan
said. “The more we can [donate excess drugs] the better we are as a
holistic community, because everything is connected.”
Full Article & Source:
More States Hatch Plans to Recycle Drugs Being Wasted in Nursing Homes
1 comment:
It is a problem. Look at the waste. Look at the opportunities for bad actors.
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