With complementary therapists there is often a possibility of entrapment by people whose aim is to trick the practitioner into saying or doing something wrong, including agreeing to provide a medicine outside of the context of a consultation.
Over the past years homeopaths have been targeted by people, posing as patients, asking that practitioners supply remedies for meningococcal disease, over-the-counter, without a consultation. This resulted in major news items being promulgated in National and State newspapers, and several State and National radio programs, including the ABC.
And there have been other attempts at entrapment, trying to get practitioners to sell remedies without consultation. The situation is always presented as ‘urgent’ (for example, ‘I’m just about to go overseas’), giving the practitioner little time to think, and playing on their desire to help in emergencies. It appears that these incidents often (but not always) involve the lives of children, babies or pregnant women, groups which are most likely to obtain the sympathy of the practitioner, but also likely to provide ‘proof’ to the media and the public that practitioners are willingly putting these ‘vulnerable’ groups at risk.
There have been several other versions of this ‘scam’.
Case #1
A person, presenting herself as a midwife, phoned asking to purchase a remedy for a lady who was currently in labour in hospital. The ‘midwife’ said she had often used the remedy, having obtained it previously from another homeopath, and gained the practitioner’s agreement to help and provide the remedy. There was also an agreement that the remedy would be handed over at the supposed hospital concerned where the midwife could be recognised by her uniform. The person did not show up, and the hospital had no such employee.
This case involves issues of non-extemporaneous prescribing and duty of care.
Case #2
A person, supposedly in a panic, phoned ‘on behalf of a very sick friend’ who needed some more of an (unnamed) homeopathic medicine. Did the practitioner ‘sell homeopathics’? The person also asked whether, in such a desperate situation, the person should see the homeopath or a doctor – what would the practitioner recommend? When the practitioner recommended that the ‘sick friend’ should see a doctor, the person lost the ‘panicky tone of voice’ and lost interest.
Senior practitioners report that they receive calls frequently from ‘patients’ they do not know. They state that, as a policy, they NEVER dispense medicine to them unless they are known to the practitioner and colleagues at the practice.
Always advise that in the case of an emergency the assistance of medical or emergency services should be sought.