A campaign to get householders to return unused medicines to their local chemist to reduce the possibility of them being used in suicides or accidental child poisoning has been started by a health board in the eastern region.
At the official launch of the campaign yesterday, the first of its kind in the State, it emerged that almost 1½ tonnes of medication had been returned last month to more than 140 pharmacies in the South Western Area Health Board region. This region covers Kildare, west Wicklow and Dublin's south city and county. The most common medicines returned were painkillers, antibiotics and heart medications.
The health board's assistant chief executive, Mr Martin Rogan, has called for a review of prescribing and dispensing patterns, particularly for medicines with a high return rate. Figures provided by the National Suicide Research Foundation show an estimated 10,500 people attended accident and emergency departments in hospitals across the State in 2002 as a result of attempted suicide or deliberate self-harm and 77 per cent of these attendances involved a drugs overdose.
Mr Rogan said when the DUMP (Dispose of Unused Medication Properly) campaign was piloted in six pharmacies a year ago, there seemed to be a direct correlation between the medication used as a method of overdose and the medication returned.
Many of the medicines returned have also been implicated in child poisonings. The National Poisons Information Centre received 4,263 inquiries last year concerning suspected poisoning in children under 10 years, of which 2,377 related to drug poisoning.
Mr Tim O'Malley, Minister of State at the Department of Health, who launched the campaign, said he would be looking at why so much medicine was not being taken by patients. It indicated a huge waste of taxpayers' money and was leading to safety concerns, he said.
