Emergency Supplies of Medication
Oct 1982 Council Report

In the event of civil emergency or natural disaster, pharmacists may receive requests for emergency supplies of needed medication. While a pharmacist may legally only supply prescription medication to the public when he or she has the authority from a prescriber to do so, circumstances may arise in which, according to the professional judgement of the pharmacist, a short-term supply of maintenance medication is medically necessary. If the patient is known to the pharmacist, and, in the pharmacist's judgement, the medication is necessary as a component of continuing therapy and the patient's practitioner is unavailable, the pharmacist may decide that a short term supply of the medication is in the patient's best interest. However when the patient and his or her drug therapy are not known to the pharmacist, the College solicitor advises that a pharmacist should not take on the responsibility of approving a supply of prescription medication; instead a physician should be contacted. The Council agreed that the matter of emergency supplies needed to be addressed on a case-by-case basis, with the professional judgement of the pharmacist the determinant.