Thousands lost in wasted drugs

Thousands of dollars spent on pharmaceutical drugs every month by Hospital Authority doctors are being wasted because patients do not take the drugs, according to a doctor.

People with outpatient appointments at Queen Mary Hospital and Sai Yin Poon Specialist Clinic were asked to return unused or unwanted drugs.

Drugs worth $86,390 were returned to Queen Mary and drugs valued at $133,606 went back to Sai Yin Poon over a two-month period.

Queen Mary's pharmacy manager William Chui Chun-ming said the amounts probably represented just a fraction of the real wastage. 'More drugs were returned to Sai Yin Pun because more patients have follow-up appointments there,' he said.

Most of the returned drugs had been prescribed for chronic conditions such as heart illnesses (accounting for 31 per cent of drugs returned), gastrointestinal diseases (16 per cent) and respiratory diseases (15 per cent).

Mr Chui said: 'We're very concerned.