A reminder that you can safely dispose of unused or expired medications this weekend.
This Saturday is National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, where multiple law enforcement agencies will set up stations where residents can come and dispose of prescriptions safely and securely. Residents are advised to avoid holding on to unused medications due to the risk of children or other family members using them. Flushing them down could also cause long-term environmental problems. Mercy Health Saint Rita's will be participating this weekend, where they will have a drop-off box located in their emergency room lobby.
"A lot of the opiate epidemic can be traced back to people starting to abuse opiate prescription pills that weren't prescribed to them," stated Gene Smith, Mercy Health-St. Rita's chief of campus police. "And so this is a way that you can properly dispose of it, you don't want to flush it down the toilet, you know there's environmental concerns there, so you want to properly dispose of it to keep you and your family safe, the environment safe."
"So medications are an important part of a patient's healthcare journey but when medications are no longer needed, it's so important for the safety for others and for our environment to dispose of those medication properly," explained Lisa Brady, Mercy Health-St. Rita's director of pharmacy. "We're proud here at St. Rita's to have a medication take back bin located in our ER lobby. It's available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day."
So far this year, more than 325 pounds of medication have been collected.
