Too many doses of medications are being dumped into Colorado’s water supply when they could be used to help needy patients in this state and beyond, two lawmakers and a nursing home administrator said Sunday morning on the west steps of the state Capitol.
“It’s just a colossal waste of money, and it’s damaging to our environment,” said Maxine Roby, administrator at the Rowan Community, a 64-bed nursing home in Denver.
Roby said she supports Senate Bill 115, which would allow facilities such as nursing homes and hospitals to donate unused — but still good — medications to nonprofit organizations such as Project CURE or Doctors Without Borders or to redispense the drugs to needy patients in Colorado.
SB 115, co-sponsored by Rep. Dianne Primavera, D-Broomfield, and Sen. Lois Tochtrop, D-Thornton, passed unanimously in the Senate and is awaiting a hearing in the House.
If approved, the bill would allow a licensed health care facility to redispense or donate unused medications without getting permission from a patient’s family member. The law would allow the unused medications to be given to another patient in the facility or to be donated to a nonprofit serving disaster victims.
All donations to a nonprofit, say the lawmakers, are to be reviewed by a licensed pharmacist.
However, some drugs could not be redistributed, such as narcotics, medications removed from their original packaging and dispensed in child-resistant “amber” bottles, and medications that need refrigeration.
The legislation could help earthquake-torn Haiti, where many residents can’t find the medications they need.
“My mother, she has high blood pressure, and getting help and medication to her is very, very hard,” said Mercella Prahdestin, a nurse at the Rowan facility.
Her mother and sister are in Haiti and fled to the countryside after the quake in hopes of finding help from friends, Prahdestin said.
At least 50 percent of the medications that come into the Rowan facility are unused and flushed away, Roby said.
Tochtrop, a nurse, estimated the value of medications wasted each year in Colorado at about $1 million.
Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com
