I have long ago learnt to 'shine my eyes' when dealing with professionals. Because they are all humans, they all make mistakes, with consequences. Today I focus on the pharmacist. The one I met recently misread the duration my girl was asked to take her antibiotics and wrote seven days instead of five. I had to point it out and he agreed and corrected it.
I shared the above information with some friends on a social media chat and soon we got talking. One person had this to say:
"My dear Obo, you are right. On getting to the pharmacy (on lst Sept) after my grand-daughter and her mum saw the doctor, the pharmacist put the baby's label on the mum's drug and the mum's label on the baby's drug. I administered the syrups and said I would read the leaflet for the tablet (because I have never heard of baby drugs in tablet form). Although I thought it might dissolve in water. Days later, my daughter asked me if I saw her contraceptives and I said NO. It just occurred to me then that the baby drugs I was gonna read before administering was for mum. Thank God for me O. Surely, we must be careful because professionals are HUMAN."
I responded as follows: Aahhh! I once got infant syrup for myself because the pharmacist apparently saw me with my daughter and thought it was for her. Imagine how our illiterate compatriots suffer then. One day in the National Hospital the pharmacist packaged the drugs meant for my wife and mistakenly added another person's own which was forgotten at the counter. What saved us was that I knew the number of drugs written on the prescription and what I was given was over so we had to do a manual recount like Florida in 2000 elections to be able to identify the 'excess matter'.
Yet another person said "Thank God @Obo that you are literate enough to read the hand written prescription which many of us can't even decode. It's a lesson now. I must learn and look. Nobody or any professional should be taken granted again."
But I have since learned to decipher even the medical doctor's coded writings. Lol! If they write 5 over 7 it means 5 days in a week (of seven days) and 1 over 52 is one week in a year (or 52 weeks).
