Lesley: Routines with multiple medicines – Disruptions to medication routines
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Lesley
Female
Age at interview: 74
Number of medicines: 25
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Lesley was caught without her medicines when her husband was in hospital at the end of his life and she needed to stay with him.
The only time was when [husband] died. He was in Manly Hospital. They decided to send him over to Greenwich Hospital. I didn't have everything with me. I had insulin with me, because I never go anywhere without that. I only had what I would have normally had for lunch with me, so I missed … I stayed over there. Once we got there I didn't leave the room until … I slept over there for two nights. So I did miss my blood pressure and cholesterol tablets and a few of those others. But it was only two nights, and it didn't seem to … my blood pressure would have been up anyway because of the circumstances. By the second night it looked to me as if he might have even lived a bit longer, though he was unconscious all that time. I asked my daughter to come and get what I had in the ice-cream container, but he died that night, so we didn't need it. But if it had been any longer, I would have made sure one of them had got the rest of my medication for me. I just said, get the ice-cream container. It's got everything in it.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.