Remember the Idaho pharmacist who was OK with letting a woman bleed to death? To recap:
Last November, a nurse at Planned Parenthood called a Walgreen's pharmacy to fill a methergine prescription for her patient. Methergine is used to prevent or treat bleeding from the uterus. It is prescribed following procedures involving the uterus, including childbirth and abortion.
Rather than do her job and fill the prescription so the patient would not risk bleeding to death, the pharmacist demanded to know whether the patient had undergone an abortion. This information is, of course, irrelevant to counting pills and putting them in a bottle, as is a pharmacist's job, and an invasion of the patient's right of privacy.
The nurse says she cited federal patient privacy laws and refused to answer.
"The pharmacist said, 'Well, if you're not going to tell me that and she had an abortion, I'm not going to fill this prescription.' And then our practitioner said, 'Why don't you tell me another pharmacy that I can call or another pharmacist that can dispense this medication for my patient?' And the pharmacist hung up on her," said Kristen Glundberg-Prosser of the Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest.
Planned Parenthood subsequently filed a complaint with the Idaho Board of Pharmacy, which investigated the matter to determine whether the pharamcist's refusal was indeed protected by Idaho's newly minted Freedom of Conscience for Health Care Professionals law, which allows medical professionals, including pharmacists, to refuse to do their jobs if it offends their oh-so-delicate conscience.
Well, the Idaho Board of Pharmacy has made a determination:
The Idaho Board of Pharmacy will not take action against a Nampa pharmacist who refused to fill a prescription ordered by a Planned Parenthood nurse.
In a letter issued Thursday, Executive Director Mark Johnston wrote that the board had concluded its investigation into the incident and found no violations of state laws the board is tasked with enforcing.
But here's the kicker:
But according to the Board of Pharmacy’s response, the Idaho Pharmacy Act does not require a pharmacist to fill a prescription. Even if the conscience law was used incorrectly, the pharmacist did not violate the Idaho Pharmacy Act by refusing to fill the prescription, the board found.
And as for the pharmacist putting the patient's health in danger? The Board disagreed:
The board's investigation confirmed that the patient received treatment elsewhere and therefore no 'grave danger' was realized...By your own account, the pharmacist was not presented with any information that would have reasonably led the pharmacist to believe that any type of emergency existed.
So in other words, since the patient ultimately received the medication she needed, and didn't bleed to death, the pharmacist did nothing wrong. Not that the pharmacist knew at the time whether the patient would be able to get her prescription filled elsewhere. The pharmacist didn't care. But according to the Board, the pharmacist did nothing wrong, but shame on the nurse for not explaining that the patient could be in grave danger if she didn't get the medication she needed. If only the nurse had said, "No, see, she really needs this medication..." Well, then, the pharmacist still had the right to say no.
So apparently, pharmacists in Idaho, whose job is supposedly to provide medication to patients, aren't actually required to provide medication to patients. Don't approve of the medication? Or the doctor prescribing it? Or the patient who needs it? No problem! After all, in Idaho, there's no law that says you have to actually do your job -- even if it means putting patients' lives in danger.
(h/t) Amie Newman at RH Reality Check)