Islanders are encouraged to take medications appropriately and dispose of unused medications safely this week during Pharmacy Awareness Week and PEI's first Medicine Cabinet Clean-Up.
More than 25,000 PEI Medicine Cabinet Clean-Up bags will be distributed through Island newspapers this weekend. People are encouraged to put their outdated medications in the paper bags and take them to their local pharmacy for environmentally safe disposal.
Details of the PEI Medicine Cabinet Clean-Up were announced today by the project partners at the launch of Pharmacy Awareness Week March 2-8, 1998. The project partners include the PEI Pharmaceutical Association, the Department of Health and Social Services, the Department of Fisheries and Environment, and Merck Frosst Canada Inc.
PEI Pharmaceutical Association president Ken Ramsay said that through the campaign the partners hope to increase public awareness and understanding of appropriate medication use and the need to dispose of unused medications safely.
"We are always concerned about the amount of unused medications in Island homes which could be potentially harmful if taken by children, or taken mistakenly by adults. We also want to make Islanders more aware that medications lose some of their strength over time and may not work as intended when they are outdated," he said.
Mr. Ramsay said that everyone should be concerned about the need to improve the way we dispose of potentially hazardous materials as they may be harmful to our water systems and landfills if washed down the drain or thrown in the garbage. The best thing to do is to bring unused medications back to the pharmacy for environmentally safe disposal," he added.
People should bring all prescription and non-prescription medications they are no longer using (except sharps and large aerosol cans) back to the pharmacy. Pharmacists will look for, and dispose of, expired medications and will also provide people with important information on the safe and proper storage of medications.
The outdated and unused medications collected at the pharmacies will be disposed of in an environmentally safe manner with the assistance of the Department of Environmental Resources.
Nova Scotia pharmacists collected more than four tonnes of outdated and unused prescription and non-prescription medications in a similar campaign last year.
Health and Social Services Minister Mildred Dover said that appropriate use of medications is a very important issue within the health system.
"Medications can make us healthier but they can also seriously harm us if taken the wrong way. Although there are many valid reasons for discontinuing a medication, we know that approximately 50 per cent of prescription drug users do not take their medications as prescribed, and this results in unnecessary illness, hospitalizations, more treatments such as physician visits and tests, and more nursing home care. Pharmacists are key members of the health care team, and it is important for us to be working together to educate the public to be better users of medication," said the minister.
Annual expenditures on prescription and non-prescription medications in Prince Edward Island are well over $60 million or $475 per capita. Of that amount, about $7.5 million is paid for by the province.
Noncompliance or inappropriate drug use may include taking too little or too much of a medicine, not filling a prescription or not taking it all, stopping too soon before the prescription runs out, taking it with alcohol, taking it irregularly, or combining the medicine with other types of drugs.
Merck Frosst Canada Inc. representative Noel Lewis said his company is also pleased to support such opportunities to assist people to take and dispose of medications properly. "There are many reasons why people can not or do not take medications as prescribed. We are very interested in improving medication compliance because we want people to get the best possible results from our products," he said.
Department of Fisheries and Environment Minister Kevin MacAdam said that his department is pleased to be an active partner in the PEI Medicine Cabinet Clean-Up campaign. "Maintaining a healthy environment requires the support of all sectors, and we are pleased to be an active partner in the campaign by making provisions to have the unused and expired medications disposed of through a licensed incinerator," he said.
The theme of Pharmacy Awareness Week is A Healthy Partnership... You and Your Pharmacist. Finding Solutions Together, and the emphasis is on better communication to get the most out your medication.
For more information on the PEI Medicine Cabinet Clean-Up contact the Department of Health and Social Services, 368 6711.