Nurse Tells Lamont
How To Save Millions

A nurse encountered on the campaign trail gave Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ned Lamont an idea to add to his new health-care plan: reusing discarded medication.

Lamont and his running mate, Mary Glassman, heard the ideas Tuesday at a lunchtime staff meeting at Walnut Hill Care Center in New Britain. It was one of two health care centers they visited to unveil a new health plan and to hear suggestions from health professionals about improving health care and reducing costs. Read his entire plan here.

Sarah Monahan (pictured at top of story) piped up with a complaint and a suggestion.

“We discard medications in the millions of dollars when [unused] medications [of patients who are discharged or who die] could be used for other residents,” she reported. ​“Even though it comes in a bubble pack, and nobody touches it — that would save the state of Connecticut millions and millions and millions of dollars that we — in just this one home — flush down the toilet.” (Her claim of ​“millions” three times over could not be independently verified.)

​“Is it a state law?” Lamont asked of the discharge policy.

It is a requirement under state health department regulations.

“It can’t be repackaged,” said another woman at the table. ​“We can’t even send it to Third World countries.”

“What, Pfizer would get upset with you?” Lamont quipped.

“I’ve been a nurse long enough,” 40 years, Monahan said. ​“We used to have bottles and if somebody went home, or [died], and somebody was on that medication, we could use it for someone else.”

“Not just even if someone dies; if you change the medication after one day,” then the initial meds would have to be destroyed, added another participant in the discussion.

Drug companies could take that medicine back, one man suggested. ​“There’s a liability issue that can’t be surmounted easily in the nursing home. You can’t just trade off these medications and be sure, 100 percent” that they’d be safe for another patient.

Another nurse noted that Medicaid does have a credit program for returning meds, but it has a lot of restrictions. ​“You have to have a certain number in the blister pack; only certain drugs are taken back. And if that was expanded, I think we could save some money.”

Lamont’s own health care ideas include ramping up use of health information technology; leveraging the state’s purchasing power to push outcome-based care, rather than ​“fee for service”; expanding access to primary care; rewarding employees for choosing a healthy lifestyle; and creating a cabinet-level position focused on long-term care and giving Connecticut residents community-based alternatives to nursing homes.

Asked to respond to Lamont’s proposals, Dan Malloy, who’s running against Lamont for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, said that as mayor of Stamford he instituted some of the ideas Lamont is disagree. So they don’t disagree on most of the ways to improve health care and reduce costs, except for one, he said. Malloy said Lamont, in encouraging community-based care over nursing homes, is acting in the ​“Rowland/Rell” mode of destroying the state’s nursing homes. ​“We’ve lost too many already,” he opined, noting that the city of Stamford is one of just two municipalities in the state to run its own nursing home. Click here for a previous story about the issue, and click here.”>here to read his entire health plan

But Lamont was clearly impressed with the staff and facilities at the New Britain nursing home he visited. (He’s pictured with CEO Donald Griggs.)

“I know our seniors want to stay at home or in their community as long as they can,” Lamont said. ​“We want to have alternatives to nursing care so that’s not the first and only item on their agenda. But many of the folks here wouldn’t be able to make it anywhere else. So we have to make sure we have the right balance going forward.”