DON'T DRINK THE WATER!!!

I posted the following on the Off-Topics forum in response to a post from John about contaminated water...thought it would be good for this forum too.


I worked as a psychologist in long-term care facilities...politically correct for nursing homes...for several years up until a few months ago.  Routinely, I would encounter nurses who were emptying pills from blister pacs into plastic cups...filling them to the brim!  After seeing this a few times I finally asked them what on earth they were doing!  To my astonishment...I was told that when medications were ordered by a physican for a particular patient...often a months supply at a time...and then discontinued or refused by the patient or the patient died...these drugs had to be disposed of by law...EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE IN UNOPENED BLISTER PACS!!!  This was particularly the case with psychotropic meds and controlled substances...which were frequently switched or DC'd.  THEY WERE THEN FLUSHED DOWN THE TOILET!!!  I'm not talking about a few pills here...I mean hundreds of pills every month...now multiply that by all the long-term care facilities that have popped up all over this country (US)!!!  The waste and financial implications of this...particularly to the Medicare system are bad enough...but the environmental and health effects are positively staggering!!!  WE ARE IN SOME SERIOUS TROUBLE, FOLKS!!!

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