Medicine Cabinet
An organised and functional medicine cabinet should be a priority item in all homes. But while many of us have medicine cabinets, we often do not maintain them.
To avoid your medicine cabinet and unused medicines becoming a health hazard, it's crucial that you only store the medicines you need while d discarding expired or unused medication. A Department of Health study titled 'Adverse drug events and medication errors in Australia' found that between 2-4 per cent of all hospital admissions were medication related. Among patients aged 75 years and over, the figure was more than 30 per cent. It's estimated there are more than 230,000 medication related hospital admissions each year at a cost of about $7.2 billion to the healthcare system. Some of these may result from unused medicines, which can be a source of poisoning children and can be confusing for elderly patients.
There are several ways to make sure everything is clear. One of the most efficient ways is by returning your old medicines to your community pharmacy for safe disposal. Along with dispensing medicines, community pharmacies dispose of medications consumers wish to discard by sending them to special high-temperature incinerators. These incinerators are used because unused medicines can contaminate the environment when disposed of in landfills or via sewers. Unused medication can be taken to any pharmacy, which disposes of them via incinerator free of charge. Medications that are out of date are not only likely to be less.
