Automated Medication Dispensers – Nurse Jackie Laments

I wrote a few days ago about the new HBO series Nurse Jackie  – a back pain-suffering nurse addicted to pain medication.  The little twist this week was the fact that the pharmacist she’s been having a little tryst with (making it easy to get her pain medication) has just informed her that the hospital will be getting an Automated Medication Dispenser.  This is basically a drug ATM, and while it is touted as not only a great time saver and way to avoid medication mistakes (eliminating human error, unless of course they input the wrong dosage in the first place), it is also an ideal way to prevent theft of narcotics.

Frankly, these little machines could go a long way toward making it less likely for health care workers to get addicted to pain medication, but I’m sure there are ways to get around that – like maybe stealing the patient’s medication and substituting a placebo.  Yikes.

Face it. If people are addicted to drugs they will find a way to work around most any system, and it will be interesting to see how Nurse Jackie finds her fix once the machines are there.

On another note – the show really captured an amazing little drug-addict moment this week. Jackie crushed her pain pills into powder, emptied some sugar substitute packets, filled them with the pain powder, then resealed them with glue.  Of course I immediately said, “Oh boy, who is going to accidentally get a hold of one of those packets?”  I hoped it wasn’t her children.  It ended up being a hospital administrator, who bumbled around the hospital clueless that she was addled with pain drugs.