On June 13th 2012, I went with my daughter, Angela, to see Dr. Kooiker, her psychiatrist at that time. We again discussed Angela’s medication management. I talked with her about Angelas’ anti-psychotic drug called Saphris, that makes her sleepy and once again asked if she might be taking too much of this medication.
Angela said that she had no problems sleeping and said that she didn’t want to take the so called insomnia medication Trazodone that Dr. Kooiker had put her on several years ago for sleeping problems. Angela also said that after looking up this drug’s side effects she found out that people with schizophrenia should not take it. She also said that she was told to fill the prescription and brought it home but that she hadn’t taken any of it.
I told the doctor that we still do not want it in our house. Angela then told her that her brother, Jon, took his life and it was found through the Toxicology screening that they had found Trazodone in his system. The doctor told us she was sorry that Jon died, yet somehow I don’t think she really cared.
I asked who labels the prescription bottles. Is it the pharmacy or does she tell the pharmacy what to put on the label? She said she tells them what to put on the label. I said that it’s not good when a bottle of anti-depressants is not labeled as such and just says,”take one tablet by mouth at bedtime as needed for insomnia”.
She said that she agreed that the bottles should be labeled better which sounded like a cop-out. Then said that she prescribes it all the time with no ill effects to any of her patients, and told us that people with schizophrenia can take Trazodone with no problems.
I reiterated that we do not want Trazodone in our house and Angela told her that she wants her to take it off her list of medications because she does not need or want to take it anymore. Dr. Kookier looked on her computer and then said that she would not take it off the list and the only thing Angela could do was to not to pick it up again from the pharmacy.
I asked Dr. Kooiker to check in Angela’s records for our signed release of information that shows we have the right to know about Angela’s care and are to be informed of any medications our daughter is being prescribed, and she said they did not have one in their file. This could not be correct if Dr. Nelson had transferred her complete file as he said he had done. We then signed a new release and the girl at the desk took it to put in her file but never gave us a copy.
Written By: JaRae Midlo