A pharmacist assigned to health centers in the Marriaqua Valley is said to be so cantankerous that clients at the clinics he serves are opting to suffer in pain rather than tangle with him.
A Facebook post brought the plight of the Marriaqua constituents’ plight to ANN’s attention . Its author, Aretha Baptiste of Glenside Mesopotamia, was so moved because of a series of untoward run-ins she has had with the Pharmacist.
According to her an altercation between the medicinal distributor and social media personality Peaches earlier this month was the catalyst for the latest confrontation between herself and the pharmacist.
“Peaches was there talking to the nurses a bit loud. Everybody knows she have this loud attitude so we were there not really paying her any mind but there was some elderly persons having a conversation – you know socializing.
“While I was there [the Pharmacist] came out and was telling Peaches ‘discipline yoself inside here’ and he going on. Peaches called his name and told him she has problems with her hearing. Nobody paid them any mind.
“Some elderly people in front was having their conversation but not talking loud to say well annoy you as a man behind two closed doors. So he came and started telling the people them ‘hush aryo mouth, less aryo noise. All ah you entertaining this stupidity.’
Baptiste recounted the Pharmacist favorite threat, “he would go and if they don’t get their treatment that is their business.”
A threat he not only makes but also is known to carry out as “he would go away and come back if he feels like it.” His habitual utterance of this threat prompted her to reprimand the pharmacist on the spot.
It seems, at least to her, that the Pharmacist wields some measure of control over the operations at the Levi Latham Health Center where he apparently scolded several nurses, behind closed doors, for evidently not being able to prevent or control Aretha from scolding him.
“They come back out quiet while one the nurse coming to tell me I must shut my mouth and keep quiet.
“I said, ‘listen to me: you don’t tell me that. This is a public place. If I shut my mouth, my mouth would stink.”
Another time a doctor chided the Pharmacist or his abrasive conduct towards patients and has not been seen at that center since.
This alleged wanton abuse of power also extends to withholding patients’ meds, Baptiste complained. A senior citizen, who hails from Peruvian Vale, appealed to a Yambou based neighbor to collect his medication since he was “hungry, feeling sick and [his] heart was hearting” and as such could not wait to see the pharmacist. The elderly man, we were told, returned home in anticipation of receiving the prescribed medicines.
“I turned to the lady after he left and I said, ‘Miss, I’m sorry but you’re not going to get this treatment. I am talking from my experience.’
“She said, ‘well I will try because he really needs it… I said OK you can try. When the lady came back out you could naturally see the tears in her eyes just to drop out.
“She said ‘Ari, you know exactly what you saying is true? You know he tell me he not giving me? [Let] the man find a way to come for it.’”
Days after Aretha would meet this lady again who then informed her that, “the guy took in (fell ill), his heart swell because he didn’t get his treatment so he end up in the hospital.”
The man had to be rushed to the intensive care unit at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital.
Up to “a few days ago,” Aretha visited a fellow resident with whom she’s had a longstanding relationship. Responding to Aretha’s queries about her health the neighbor said,
“I am not feeling too well but my life is in fear.” She refused a ride to the health center because “she can’t deal with the Dispenser how he insulting people and stuff like that.”
This more than anything else trigged her impassioned “pray for the elders of Mesopotamia and surrounding areas” which amassed some 159 shares and 100 plus comments on her Facebook wall.
Other contributors weighed in with their own tales of his uncouth and insensitive style.
Some spoke of their children’s fate at his hands – “my daughter drop down … and that same [Dispenser] refused to give my daughter her meds too,” one mother, wrote.
Another person added, “I know who that Dispenser is, he have no manners and if you go for a refill on meds and you don’t have the bag he gave you 6 months ago, you not getting any meds. He is too full of himself.”
Aretha knows all too well, given her first-hand experience, what the district pharmacist’s callous customer service approach feels like. Due to an affliction with fibroids both of her pregnancies resulted in doctor ordered “bed rest.”
As luck would have it while she was pregnant with her second son her firstborn fell ill. Her sister interceded and took the child to visit the doctor who promptly prescribed some medication.
“When she go she say the Dispenser hag she up like, ‘that is your child?! That is not your child! I am not going to see that child! His mother has to bring him! And he did not give my child the treatment. When she came home I cried.”
The stories were so overwhelming that ANN immediately reached out to the Pharmaceutical Services department for a better appreciation as to what can be done to remedy the situation. Senior Pharmacist Colicia Mingo who assured us that as grave as the allegations appeared, it was the first time any such was being brought to her attention .
“While we, from time to time may receive complaints concerning officers, a lot of what you just revealed there, this is the first time I’m being made aware,” Mingo said.
But the complainants are not recourse-less, she advised.
“Pharmaceutical Services would definitely endeavor to investigate and we would appreciate to have these allegations and complaints in writing.
“And of course the civil service system has measures and things in place to deal with any officer who is not conducting themselves or carrying out their duties in a manner in which it should be done.”
ANN shared this response with Aretha Baptiste who committed in the memory of her now deceased uncle, to go the extra step and marshal the necessary documentation.
“If I have to go to the limit to help save the people of Mespo I will go above and beyond because I have children and I care about their future.”
Aretha’s uncle died, in pain she alleged, because he refused to have anything to do with the ill-mannered pharmacist. Aretha too suffered in pain before heading to a private doctor one day after an ice cream van knocked her over; again in avoidance of the so-called menace.
Her mission, she says, is not to have pharmacist fired, as “everybody have to live so I don’t want him to lose his job but what I mean to say is that he needs to learn how to deal with people.”
Asberth News Network understands that area Member of Parliament Jimmy Prince has been asked to intercede in this issue to no avail. ANN was unable to reach the pharmacist or MP Prince.
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Is a Mespo Backra dat?