It was Saturday January 18th. That same day I went to the nearest pharmacy, Guardian, to get the pills. They apologized because they didn't have it. They advised to try another pharmacy.
Which I did a few days later. This time, Unity. Same answer. No pill and even worse there was no pharmacist behind the counter. Just a useless shop assistant.
Tuesday I tried Watson's at Bishan with no better luck. She didn't have mini pills. She had regular pills but was concerned that it was different from the prescription. Really? There might be a reason why my doctor prescribed a mini pill. She advised me to try another Watson's on Orchard that has a bigger pharmacy. To be fair the pharmacy was merely a corner of the drugstore: a counter and a couple of cabinets filled with medication.
Saturday, I went to Orchard and to the bigger pharmacy. It was indeed bigger. The corner was larger with four cabinets instead of two. Still compare to what we are used to in Europe, you would not call this a pharmacy.
Without surprise they didn't have mini pills either. It seems getting medication in Singapore is not that straight forward. Better leave the doctor's office or the hospital with what you need because a pharmacy in Singapore won't be of any help.
The tricky part is that for some mysterious reason, mini pills are not used frequently in Singapore thus pharmacies do not carry them. Why is that you could ask? I cannot believe I am the first nursing mother asking for birth control. But maybe I am wrong...
I was extremely annoyed and made it clear to the pharmacist. I guess she was insulted when I checked whether she was a pharmacist and not a shop assistant. I can understand that a shop assistant cannot advise on medication. I cannot accept it from someone who has been trained as a pharmacist. And after four pharmacies I cannot understand that none could provide me with something as simple as birth control.
She did try to explain that her system is design to search by brand and not by type of medication which meant she had to check whether the brand mentioned in the system was the right type separately. I naively assumed that as a pharmacist she would know that. Apparently I was wrong and she got even more annoyed by me and me with her. Interestingly she never lost her smile. It was clearly a fake smile because except for the lips that were smiling, the rest of the face was not showing happiness. Yet she never lost the smile I have to give her that.
After a good 10min of search she concluded that I had to go to a hospital pharmacy, preferably a women's hospital. She called the pharmacy of KK hospital to check that they have some. That was nice of her. Of course this pharmacy is not open on the weekends. But it gave Wolfram the idea to check at the one from Thomson Medical Center. They didn't have it either.
Tomorrow I'm calling back the doctor to ask where to go.
Had I known it would have been so difficult, I would have brought some from Europe. Maybe I could find it online :)
No comments:
Post a Comment