Public hospitals across the country are trying to solve their financial woes by cutting pharmaceutical services. The medication crisis manifests itself differently in communities that cannot support public hospitals. There the problem appears in clinics and doctors' offices. Jack Birge, a private practitioner in Carrollton, is so frustrated by the paperwork, rules, and bureaucracy that he's given up applying for these programs. A family physician in rural California bypasses the system altogether by asking family members of dead patients to bring in their unused medications so he can keep his living patients alive.
Patients develop their own dangerous innovations.
They might take their medications every two or three days instead of daily as directed. A physician assistant in rural Pennsylvania reports that a mother with a child suffering from pneumonia planned to get a prescription for him and then split the drugs among her four other sick children. In North Dakota, physician assistant Jackie Hollevoet says many elderly patients with multiple diseases, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and arthritis, roll the dice and buy the medication for the one disease they perceive to be the most serious. Health care provider Daniel Lynam in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, says his patients often don't show up for appointments when they can't afford medications. He visited one patient at home and gave him the money for his medicines.