My complaint:
I have continually had bad experiences visiting this pharmacy and myself and my partner have both changed to sobey’s pharmacy and I will not be using the pharmacy services here again.
I picked up my prescription for a new medication on October 20th and the girl working at the pharmacy was very dismissive and rude. She gave me the new medication and did not even ask me if I had taken these before, which every pharmacy has always asked me in the past, keeping in mind this was anti-psychotic medication. I asked her if this was the new medication and she said yes and then I said Don’t i need to speak to the pharmacist about this? Since most pharmacies will always get the pharmacist to speak with you when you start new meds and she cut me off as I was speaking and very coldly said if you have questions go over there and pointed to the consultation counter. I could not believe the lack of regard for this situation especially since I was being placed on a new medication and had never been on anti psychotics before.
Shortly after that on november 28th we visited this pharmacy to get our flu shots. The person administering the shots did not say a single word to us during the whole process. They didn’t ask us about allergies, issues with past vaccinations, possible side effects or anything which ive always had when getting vaccines in the past. And we did not even get any paperwork which I found very strange as I’ve gotten a slip from other shoppers’ in the past. It was a very uncomfortable experience and the person giving the shots was not friendly at all. On this same visit, my partner needed to pick up injecting needles and the pharmacist said that they didn’t know the price of each individual needle so he asked him to pay $10 per 10 needles. Myself and my partner were absolutely floored as those needles are barely 20 cents each. My partner stated this and the pharmacist then said okay how is 2 dollars? I am completely shocked at this lack of professionalism and that the pharmacist himself was just making up a price for something on the spot. That is completely shocking and very unfair as those who don’t know the difference would probably have paid this outrageous price that the pharmacist just came up with on the spot.
Following this, my partner went to pick up a refill of my medication on December 20th that my doctor had refilled a month prior to this. When he arrived, the person working there asked if I had picked up my last refill (which I hadn’t but my partner assumed that I would have) and the person working did not even simply check to see if my refill was there and they told him there’s no refills left but that they could send a fax to the doctor. I called this pharmacy 11 times that morning trying to get through to ask for an emergency refill. I kept cycling between the music and a ringing tone so I believe that the pharmacy was purposely not answering my calls. It is shameful that I called 11 times, 2 of them I was waiting on hold over 10 minutes each time, and then the other 9 times I immediately got a busy signal and was not even presented with the option to press 3 for the pharmacy. Because of this I had to leave work to go to the pharmacy and speak to someone in person. The woman working at the pick up counter was not even in uniform or wearing any kind of identification to show they worked in the pharmacy. I was politely trying to explain my situation thinking it was my doctor’s fault and that they failed to refill my prescription. The woman kept cutting me off and asking for my address and DOB while I was trying to explain why I needed an emergency refill. She then says the last refill was around the end of November and I said yes that’s the one I need. She says oh we thought you picked that up already one second. I dont understand why they didn’t even check to see if it was there in the first place to save me the trouble of trying to call them and then having to leave work to go down in person and sort this out. She then goes and talks to another person working there and gets the bottle of the pills and hands it to me. No paper bag, no receipt, and she didn’t even ask me to pay. She just handed me the bottle. Never in all my life have I ever just been handed my medication with no receipt, no bag and not even asking me to pay!
On December 31st my partner called the pharmacy to ask to refill his prescription and they advised him it would be ready the next day, January 1st at 12:30pm. My partner went to go pick them up 2 days after this on January 3rd and they told him they didn’t even have this medication and would need to order it in. If they needed to do that, why wouldn’t they have done it on December 31st when he called them the first time? And why couldnt they have advised him that it had to be ordered in? My partner was then without his prescription and had to call the sobeys pharmacy to switch to them and ask them if they could refill it for him.
The lack of unprofessionalism I have experienced from this store is astounding and I’ve never had such horrible consecutive experiences with a pharmacy. After this, I immediately called sobeys pharmacy to switch to them and I will never visit this pharmacy again. I hope that in reading this you will do something about the lack of regard for your patients and the complete lack of professionalism displayed by your staff.
Suggested solution:
I would like an apology for this horrible service. I would also like to know that all the staff have been notified of this experience to help them improve on their service so that nobody has to experience something like this going forward.
