I take my mother out of nursing home in upstate NY for several hours every Sunday. I am her Health Proxy and POA. Nursing home is now refusing to give me her narcotic pain medication creating a situation whereby I will have to choose between taking her out for home visits or keeping her pain free. Is this legal to deny POA Meds requested a week in advance?
I would feel safer if the Dr prescribed enough tablets for a month's outings and you had those in your care. Only a one month supply of narcotics is allowed to be dispensed in NYS. If the patient was at home they could have a whole darn bottle of the things. It can take an horror the patient to receive something in a hospital if it is not already in the drug cart. First the nurse has to locate the Dr and he has to write the order which then goes to the pharmacy who can take their sweet time delivering it to the floor.
Avalon you seem to have found a way round all the road blocks so don't talk about it too much.
It's the result of legislators with good intentions imposing procedures that unfortunately have limited effect on the *abuse* of controlled substances, but make life extremely frustrating and difficult for legitimate *users* of controlled substances. I well remember almost swallowing my own tongue with frustration when my son was in terrible pain from a broken leg while his hospital nurses were going through their Morphine Pas-de-Deux dance, which seemed to take forever!!! You can appreciate that these checks are important and still find them needlessly obstructive in practice.
Thanks for responses but the answer I got was not accurate at least for this nursing home in Upstate NY