Special Report: What a Waste: Down the Drain

You're watching perfectly good pills and your tax dollars go down the toilet. It's a situation 7News showed you three years ago and state officials promised to fix.

Nancy Ridley, Dept. of Public Health
"We definitely have gotten there. We have a great system now."

Not so, according to the nurses, who say they're still dumping more drugs than they save.

Dan Hausle
"How much is still wasted?"

Valerie Laurence, Nursing Staff Trainer
"A ton."

Three years ago, we showed you how nursing homes across the state were dumping millions of dollars in pills, patches and vials paid for by Medicaid and your tax dollars. It's leftover medication from patients who moved, died or had their medication changed or stopped.

The state started individually labeling doses of the most expensive and most used drugs so they could be recycled. But nurses say more than half the drugs first targeted are hardly used anymore and expensive newer drugs are joining the rest still being dumped.

Dan Hausle
"The state has started recycling?"

"Correct."

Dan Hausle
"How's it going?"

"Poorly"

Valerie Laurence, Nursing Staff Trainer
"There's very few medications in the recycle bin."

"I find the same amount of medications being wasted… that I have to take off the floor and destroy now."

Nurses also complain that the recycling is all voluntary. So why doesn't the state make it mandatory? Legislator Marc Carron, a drug recycling supporter, says drug company lobbyists have a lot to do with that. They'd lose money for every pill that didn't get dumped (go down the drain).

Nancy Ridley, Dept. of Public Health
"They're more effective than we are right now."

Dan Hausle
"You've seen some savings?"

Nancy Ridley, Dept. of Public Health
"Definitely."

Dan Hausle
"But you agree that more savings that can be made?"

Nancy Ridley, Dept. of Public Health
"Yes, I don't think we'll ever be done with this."

The state says it’s about to add twenty to twenty-five more drugs to the recycling list in a matter of weeks… or months. The nurses say they're waiting.

If you see examples of government waste, let us know by clicking here or calling the "What a Waste" hotline at 617-770-WASTE.