This post is about the NZ pharmacies. They are just so different comparing them to the Hungarian ones.
- When you are entering one it really doesn’t look like a pharmacy and doesn’t have the smell of a pharmacy. You can buy kind of anything from candles and home fragrances to kid toys and of course the usual staff as medicine and others.
- You give your prescription to the shop assistant who is taking your name then you got an estimated time when your medicine will be ready. It can take 10 – 40 minutes 😀 That was the biggest surprise for me. In Hungary people are waiting/standing in a queue and getting their medicine right after they show their prescription. Yes sometimes you have to wait for a several minutes, but never ever 40 minutes. 🙂 When I first heard from the pharmacist that – Ok, it takes 15 minutes to get ready my medication I really thought that I misunderstood something. I asked back, then realised this is how is working here. So nowadays I am planning to do something during these waiting time. Sometimes I am doing the grocery and picking up on the way back home my medicine.
- You can refill your regular medication. They have your original prescription in their system, so you just have to say your name and they know what to do. Of course if there are more things on your name you have to say which is the one you would like refill. 🙂 This is something totally new thing for me.
All in all, it is an interesting system. I cannot say that I like it more, I think I would merge the 2 systems. Reduce the waiting time for example. 🙂
