Prescription for pain, angst and 'silly old buggers'

Bob Hawke once infamously referred to a senior citizen as a "silly old bugger" before he inevitably became one, but it seems bureaucrats and some private enterprise operators want to make life ever more complicated for this significant percentage of the population.

Telcos, banks and health insurers are among the many businesses I'd include in the bracket that fail to recognise more than 17 percent of their customers are probably over 65. Many will find the latest "apps" and upgrades difficult to navigate, especially when callers are subjected to conversing with an AI bot before being directed to some lady in an Asian call centre who has difficulty in speaking or understanding English.

My latest head scratching, hair-pulling moment involved a pharmaceutical business which made me glad all over again that I walked away from that industry after completing a pharmacy apprenticeship straight out of High School.

I'm obviously not a fan of Big Pharma, vaccine mandates or vaccine injury indemnities as I have frequently stated, but don't get me wrong - there are obviously many very good pharmacists and perhaps my latest negative encounter was the result of some weird obscure government regulation.

But I doubt it, and staff at the emergency department of our local private hospital couldn't fathom it either.

How so? Well, it started with pains in the belly which were worse than the pains in another part of the anatomy experienced from sitting and watching Federal Parliament's Question Time for more than 15 minutes, so yes, pretty bad and they kept me awake most of the night.

Next day it was off to the hospital emergency department where I spent about four hours waiting on the result of a blood test and CT scan, which helped a busy and efficient doctor to diagnose an internal infection.

He gave me the choice of being admitted and having an antibiotic drip or taking a course of antibiotics at home.

It took me about a nanosecond to reply, "At home, thanks Doc!"

So he printed out a list of foods to avoid (many of my favourites including anything spicy, with roughage, or fried) and a fairly bland list of approvals. I'm ok with that.

He also gave me two prescriptions for an antibiotic with the instruction, "Take two a day for five days from the first script and if your condition hasn't improved, get the second script filled and take them for another five days. If you're still no better, come back here…"

All good. Next morning my doting wife who is just recovering from cataract surgery took my prescription to a local major pharmacy chain during a rain deluge and returned home wet and with a soaked package containing one dry box of antibiotic tablets.