[Asvi]

Salaam,

I have to doing a research project at work and I needed some help. What do you guys think about Over the Counter Drugs in the Workplace? Do you think its safe to keep non-presciption drugs at work? Should medicine be included as part of the First Aid? And how should one go about administering non-prescription drugs at work? eg. keep it in a vending machine or assign an employee to administer them etc...
If your answer is yes/no, please give a reason. Comments/suggestions are welcome.

Thanks !

AH

[Khairan]

Originally Posted by Asvi

Salaam,

I have to doing a research project at work and I needed some help. What do you guys think about Over the Counter Drugs in the Workplace? Do you think its safe to keep non-presciption drugs at work? Should medicine be included as part of the First Aid? And how should one go about administering non-prescription drugs at work? eg. keep it in a vending machine or assign an employee to administer them etc...
If your answer is yes/no, please give a reason. Comments/suggestions are welcome.

Thanks !

AH

I'm not really sure what you're asking. OTC meds are by definition freely available, so I can't imagine there could be a rule preventing people from keeping them if they need them. Or, do you mean whether it is reasonable for a workplace to have an active policy of providing certain OTC meds to their employees or having them available?

If the latter, I don't think there are very many such meds that would be useful to have specifically in a place of work. Headache pills, perhaps, and certainly first aid kits are useful. Beyond that, why would you need anything else?

[Asvi]

Originally Posted by Khairan

I'm not really sure what you're asking. OTC meds are by definition freely available, so I can't imagine there could be a rule preventing people from keeping them if they need them. Or, do you mean whether it is reasonable for a workplace to have an active policy of providing certain OTC meds to their employees or having them available?

If the latter, I don't think there are very many such meds that would be useful to have specifically in a place of work. Headache pills, perhaps, and certainly first aid kits are useful. Beyond that, why would you need anything else?

Maybe i should have been more specific, but what i meant was that pills such as aspirin or tylenol be also included in the first aid kit to relieve pain due to headaches, or minor injuries.

Anywho.. thanks for replying..

[fatima]

i think its perfectly fine and acceptable to have these medications available to people that need them in the workplace. as long as there were proper instructions for their use, it would be safe, in my opinion. however, if i owned/ran the company...you can never be too careful in this lawsuit-happy society we live in. so i would probably go the vending machine route...or have ppl sign something before dispensing meds to them. in case someone had a bad reaction to something, it would have been because of their free will that they took it, and not cuz i gave it to them.

but yeah....im all for passing out drugs to people...makes the day go by faster...

[PhDGirl]

Besides painkillers, you might want to have tums or pepto plus contact lens solution on hand.

[Khairan]

Originally Posted by PhDGirl

Besides painkillers, you might want to have tums or pepto plus contact lens solution on hand.

At MY place of work, I think they just need to put Ativan in the water supply.