[NFBNJ] Sept 9-15 Medication Safety Awareness Week

[joe ruffalo]

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Joe Ruffalo, President
National Federation of the Blind of New Jersey
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September 9-15, 2017  is Medication Safety Awareness Week.  Many and varied
agencies, consumer groups, hospitals, pharmacies and medical manufacturers
are doing much to promote safety in the use of medications in our country.
The Blind History Lady weighs in on this important topic from a historical
perspective looking at the attitudes of the sighted and blind from decades
past and how those attitudes impacted a blind person’s ability to take
control of their own health with confidence.


With companies such as with En-Vision America, the makers of ScripTalk, we
are working to make opportunities to lead a full life better for the blind.



Through the decades and centuries, were we as blind people less equipped or
better at taking the correct medication because we are more careful?  Did we
mark our medication bottles accurately, tactilely to ensure correct
identification?  Have the amounts of prescriptions written to all Americans
in this century made it harder to ensure as a blind person we are taking the
correct meds?  To the best of my knowledge,  no statistics or reports
regarding the blind and medication mix-ups has ever been kept.  Biennial
reports from many schools for the blind to their state’s Governor and state
legislative bodies dating back over 150 years ( a great source of hidden
blindness statistics for children and adults)  rarely note the health of a
blind student or “inmate” that was compromised by the blind person
themselves through incorrect medication.



As The Blind History Lady, I have ran across documentation and many old news
articles that tell of medication mishaps that have resulted in blindness to
young children who were then sent to the state school for the blind.
Parents, living in rural areas,  have been left medications by traveling
doctors and not told how to use it or the correct doses.  Their
miss-information resulted in the loss of sight for their children.  The same
with eye injuries to the young and old alike.  Medications have been left
with families and incorrect amounts have been administered to the newly
blinded individual causing permanent damage to the eye.  Sighted doctors and
nurses had unknowingly given medication to patients that resulted in
blindness even in a hospital setting.



Had ScripTalk been around for the sighted doctors, nurses and family members
to use back then, maybe a large percentage of blindness could have been
avoided.  When beginning  my research for this topic, I have marveled at why
this product is not marketed and used by the sighted, not just the blind.
Remember the medication mix-up in the 1946 holiday film ”It’s a Wonderful
Life”?



Looking at history I have realized that the most important value to those of
us who have a ScripTalk in our home is not the identification of the
medications itself, but rather the control and confidence it gives us and
more importantly, a confidence to our family and medical teams allowing us
to have control over our medications, thus control of our lives.  Or as one
ScripTalk user put it, to get the sighted  off our backs.



Let’s take a quick look back at the history of the blind in our country.
For the most part, blindness was considered and dealt with as a condition
that must be cured.  That the blind who were not able to be restored of
their sight, were broken and needed to be put aside.  Religion played a
major part in how blindness was looked at in the home and the community.
How many of us have heard that “The sins of the Father…..



Deuteronomy, 5-9 says; You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I
the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on
the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.  This
message was repeated in many old testament books and preached from the
pulpits, tree stumps and street corners for centuries.  It is no wonder that
blinded family members were shut off in back rooms or sent away.



As time passed and New Testament readings bringing the message of God’s
forgiveness to the forefront of religions,  the blanket of shame on an
entire family of one who became or was born blind was slowly, over the
decades,  lifted.  Yet, even with passages such as In John 9:1-3, it is
written, As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples
asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born
blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents,
but that the works of God might be displayed in him.  Yet, even today, I
talk to parents who tell me that their first thought when finding out their
child is blind is, “What did I do wrong?”



For centuries, blind individuals have been locked away in Alms Houses and
Asylums as it was said to be best for the blind person. Preveling belief was
that someone at the Asylum could take care of the blind family member much
better than family could at home.  Yet many of those who worked in the
Asylums had little experience and were just shy of entering an alms house
themselves.  Inmates had no control over their lives including the ability
or freedom to leave.  The story of the early years of Anne Sullivan and her
brother illustrate the horrors of the old Asylums of the past and how those
institutions  impacted blind people.



When the schools for the blind first opened in our country, many families
who loved their little blind children very much refused to send them to a
school for the blind, no matter how well presented the new institution.
Family feared that if their young blind child was sent off to the asylum,
that family would lose control and never see their child  again, or at
least, not as a whole person.  While there were other families who were
eager to relinquish custody of their child to the state where they could be
better cared for and understood and in too many cases, out of sight and out
of mind.  It is important to note that transportation, even 50 miles back
then was a day’s trip or more that farmers could ill afford to take to visit
or have their blind child brought home for a weekend.



At many of the state sponsored schools for the blind, medical eye care was
provided free of charge to the families.  This was for several reasons. 1.
The state was the guardian for these young people and it would not be
fiscally or morally sound to ignore their health.  2.  This was an
opportunity to “cure” the blind child so they would not be a burden on their
home community or the state’s  welfare funds later when they returned home.
3.  It was also a great opportunity for the medical profession to provide
experimental procedures or medication to a controlled group of the blind and
produce results much faster and with a higher rate of success and
assuredness.



For hundreds of students across America, this was certainly the case.  The
School for the Blind was in a larger community and the state paid for a
doctor to look after the children.  Some of these children became guinea
pigs for new, experimental  medical procedures to prevent blindness.  Not
all procedures or surgeries were successful for some of the children.
Biennial reports do tell of several of the blind children brought under the
state’s  care who did return to their home schools with vision restored.
Yet, no matter the results, family were grateful for the efforts made on
behalf of their blind, helpless children as medical treatment in their home
community did not exist or the families just could not afford the doctor’s
fees.



No one during the 19th or much of the 20th century, expected the blind child
or inmate to be responsible for their medication.  No patient, sighted or
blind, child or adult,  had control over their medication in a hospital or
medical setting.  Far fewer people took medications as they were expensive
and also not as easy to come by unless one lived in a larger community.



For those blind ancestors who handled medications just as good or poorly as
the sighted.  Smells, size, texture of pills or powders indicated the
medication.  Marking bottles in braille, or with different sizes and shapes
of bottles and packaging were frequently used to keep medications separate.



Blind doctors such as Jacob Bolotin or Robert H. Babcock,(1851-1930)
renowned blind heart specialist from Illinois controlled their careers
through the confidence they had in themselves.    During Babcock’s career as
a physician, 1877-1920’s, handled medication all the time.  He also drew
with chalk or crayon on the bodies of his patients to illustrate to the
sighted doctors where organs lay or where to make the incisions before
surgery.  For more than 40 years, he actively practiced medicine in the
Chicago area and consulted across the country on cases involving the heart
and lungs.  According to the Washington D. C. Evening Star of June 11, 1901,
there were already eight or ten blind physicians, with an active medical
practice,  in the United States at that time.



Blind pharmacists such as Sam Jones, a blind man of moderate travel skills,
had difficulty convincing the community that he was up to the task and after
a few years, sold his drugstore in Iowa.  While in Wisconsin, Pharmacist and
drug manufacturer, Willard Tubbs, (1869-1931)  a poised blind man with
excellent travel skills, not only manufactured medications, but also
demonstrated his wares throughout the Midwest with confidence.  In his later
years, he found it necessary to stay back in Wisconsin to manage his large
factory, write books and pamphlets and  travel more to conferences and
conventions rather than hitting the road as a salesman.  His clients had
confidence in him and shared their trust with others who asked about the
reputation of Mr. Tubbs.



Blind people are a part of the general population with all of the same
fears, worries and confidences as the sighted.  When we have confidence in
ourselves,  identifying the content of a couple of medication bottles is no
big deal.  Just ask Dr. Babcock or Mr. Tubbs.



Today, a greater percentage of Americans are living longer and much more
independently than before.  Senior living facilities are allowing more and
more older Americans to live on their own.  More community services allow
more and more older American’s to remain in their own homes.  However, with
these targeted housing initiatives and community based senior services,
there can often be a formalization of old stereotypes as legitimate criteria
that need to be addressed in their guidelines, in case of a lawsuit.  “For
your safety” is a phrase that some of the older blind individuals I have
talked with say they here far too often from potential senior companion or
service groups today.  As a condition of the acceptance of some  community
services, the older blind person must declare they cannot do or must give up
certain activities or services, not usually related to the tasks requested
or set down for receiving services.  If the competent blind person continues
to cook their own meals or walk to the near-by store for milk, other
non-related services  will be dropped.  In one case, if the blind senior
wishes to take care of their own medications, then they will not be able to
have a senior companion rake their yard or drive them to the pharmacy.



Today, most would agree that the confidence level of the blind in respect to
the medical profession, the general population and indeed the blind
themselves  is not much better on the whole than it was in 1800.  Most still
feel that control of medication is best left in the hands of the sighted.
Today, blind individuals pursuing a medical degree are met with every
roadblock possible.  Rarely do we hear of a blind pharmacist earning a
living either in a hospital or with the many large drug store chains who
claim to reach out to the disabled communities to employ the handicapped.
Yet, today, we still hear of the sighted overdosing or taking the wrong
medications.  The common theory is that if the sighted, who can read the
bottles are still making the mistakes, then the blind surely will.



ScripTalk provides a product that promotes Control and Confidence  and a
trust in the blind and low vision population to be able to handle
medications with ease and accuracy.  Those losing their vision have no
confidence in their ability.  ScripTalk is a product that is available to
provide the confidence to this population.  With the confidence they gain
from the ability to take control of their medication, they can move ahead
with their healthcare, at home, and with the adjustment to their new
circumstances, building on the success that ScripTalk provided.



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You can also read The Blind History Lady at peggychong at earthlink.net