New service to dispose of unused medicines

Written by Priscilla Lynch Monday, 08 February 2010 12:32

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A free service to dispose of unused or out-of-date medicines is now available to the general public in Cork and Kerry.

The Dispose of Unused Medicines Properly (DUMP) campaign, which has been organised by the HSE with the community pharmacists in Cork and Kerry, and supported by Cork City Council and Cork County Council, will run in participating pharmacies until  March 12.

More than 200 pharmacies are participating in the campaign and are actively encouraging people to return unwanted or out-of-date medicines to them so that it can be disposed of safely and properly.

In 2007, the National Poisons Information Centre received a total of 11,011 enquiries, mostly involving pharmaceutical overdoses, with paracetamol and ibuprofen being among the most common agents. 4,375 (52.9 per cent) of these enquiries involved children under 10 years. There are an average of eight accidental deaths due to medication poisoning each year in Cork and Kerry.

In addition, every year more than 1,000 people present to hospital emergency departments in Cork and Kerry due to intentional overdoses of medication (accounting for three-quarters of all parasuicide/ deliberate self-harm presentations). In Cork and Kerry each year there are approximately 90 deaths by suicide, and on average 14 (or one-in-six) of these are due to an overdose of medication.

The DUMP campaign has been operating successfully in Cork and Kerry since 2007. Last year, more than 260 bins, containing 3.5 tonnes of medicines, were safely disposed of as part of the campaign.

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