France in Focus

Since Covid I have got into the habit of emailing my prescription to the pharmacy. It gives them time when they aren’t busy to make it up and I pop in to pick it up.

I had to get some one off treatments before an ‘oscopy’ this week and got the message that all was ready for collection.
When I went in, the pharmacist apologised that one treatment wasn’t available but that he had phoned the consultant and they had said not to worry just continue with the other treatment.

There was another customer in the pharmacy at the same time trying to get a product for an MRI scan for this week which was en rupture

This seems to becoming more frequent .
I’m a little concerned but my real question is if the treatment isn’t crucial to the oscopy success why do they prescribe it?
If the product really is required what happens ? Postponement?

Maybe it is just something to make it easier / more visible - as opposed to possible/impossible?

I declined an enema before a CT scan - it would have been better to have CT with, but not impossible without.

I have an MRI every year and they always insert a canular ready for a fluid that shows up on the scan. The radiologist never injects the fluid and I always tell them it has never been needed but the nurse always insists.

There's been a shortage of many drugs for a considerable time, worse since Covid and the war. Even over-the-counter stuff like paracetamol has been in short supply.

We have also found that fairly standard medications have stocked out and the cortisone cream that I use seems to be out of production all together. One of the pharmacists told me that one medication was out of stock because CPAM were cutting back on stock. That seemed very strange to me but I now wonder if CPAM are delaying payments to the pharmacies and that is causing them to cut back on stock.

We often have to order medications as they are not in stock.

Sometimes the hospital keeps a stock of the drug and will provide it on the day. I've witnessed that happening at scanner appts when people forgot to get the product.