Pharmacy Continence Care - Bladder and Bowel Website

that time, so she has not had the cause of the problem diagnosed. Now the
physiotherapist is also leaving the town, and Jane does not know if she will be
replaced. She does not know where to turn and her incontinence problem is
increasingly inhibiting normal daily activities such as shopping because she has been
“caught short’’ a couple of times.
CONSUMER CASE STUDY 2
Roger is 75 years old and now lives in the city. He was trained as an anthropologist
and spent many years working in the tropics and on major construction sites in
Australia and internationally. He now has multiple health conditions, including heart
disease, recurring skin cancers and continence problems arising from a radical
prostatectomy. His wife has diabetes and also suffers from incontinence. Both take
multiple medications.
Roger is a regular visitor to a local pharmacy where the two pharmacists play a key
role in his health care. He is able to talk to them about all his health problems,
including his incontinence. He attributes this to their easy-going but caring manner,
and describes his relationship with them as based on friendship and mutual respect.
Roger says that the pharmacists give him any available written information, which he
reads carefully and has provided very good advice about his daily eating and drinking
habits. He has learned many things about how to manage his incontinence problems
through these exchanges with the pharmacists.
The pharmacy provides a private space for discussion of personal health problems,
which Roger believes this encouraged his wife to also seek advice, as it offers
privacy.
Roger says the pharmacists play a first class role in his health care and he thinks that
if he took a poll amongst the people who go there, 95 per cent would never attend
another chemist shop. He and other customers have a lot of faith in the ability of the
pharmacists to communicate with the average person who doesn’t understand
complex technical information.
There is another pharmacy close to where Roger and his wife live, but it is a large
one and it carries a lot of stock, including toiletries and other non-pharmacy items.
The pharmacists are tucked away at the back of the shop, and on occasions when he
has visited this pharmacy, he has not found them to be accessible. The drug is
dispensed and handed down to one of the staff who deals with the customers. Roger
describes the service as impersonal and he does not have the same degree of
confidence as he has in his regular pharmacy.
CARER CASE STUDY
Mary has had a good long term relationship with a local pharmacist. She describes
him as being “very knowledgeable about continence matters”, and she feels very
comfortable talking to him about her mother’s incontinence.
Mary provides full time care for her mother, Ingrid. Eleven years ago Mary moved
from her home town to look after her ageing mother when her mother became
increasingly unable to look after herself. Ingrid has mild dementia and over the past
five years has become increasingly incontinent. Two years ago Mary gave up her job
to become a full time carer and she and her mother are now dependent on pensions.
Mary’s mother had always been very independent. Born and raised in austere
conditions in wartime Europe, she married but left her alcoholic husband when the
children were young, to raise them on her own.
Final Report
45
NOVA Public Policy
Pharmacy Continence Care Project