Many Pharmacists may not be conducting important screening required to keep Canadians safe

Many pharmacists may not be conducting important screening required to keep Canadians safe from dangerous drug interactions, a CBC Marketplace investigation reveals. The more than 38,000 pharmacists across the country fill over half a billion doctor prescriptions every year, but are also required to ensure medications don’t interact in potentially dangerous ways. In a month long investigation that’s the largest of its kind in Canada, Marketplace took hidden cameras into pharmacies to test if pharmacists are dispensing the proper advice to patients asking for behind-the-counter drugs.
Vince Garnier knows the danger all too well.
In October, a pharmacist in North Sydney, N.S., failed to alert his mother to an interaction between different medications she was prescribed. “She became very weak, nauseous, headaches, lightheadedness, and to the point where she almost fainted at home,” Garnier says. She ended up in the hospital with serious complications, and hasn’t fully recovered. “[My father] broke down and started crying. He honestly believed that my mother was going to die,” he said.