Medication not delivered

<p>My elderly parents have been using this service for some years now and it has generally worked really well for them as getting to the chemist to collect their chronic medication is difficult at their age. The experiene has been good up until December when my 81 year old father's medication was not delivered. My mother has made over 20 phone calls to try and get this resolved (and that is not exaggerated - I have their phone print out in front of me). Eventually before christmas 8 out of 10 of his medication pills were received. I have made a further 2 phone calls from London to try and get the other two medication pills delivered but as of today nothing has been delivered.</p> <p> </p> <p>In essence the problem is down to a co-payment that is needed to be made, this was never a problem in the past as the medication was delivered on time and then a bank transfer was done for the co-payment. However since optipharm has merged with dis-chem direct they want a payment up front (which I feel is totally reasonable). When we were informmed of this in September we happily signed a direct debit form authorising optipharm/dischem to debit my parents bank account for any shortfall that the medical aid did not pay.</p> <p>When my mother was ringing about the medication, she was told the medication won't be delivered without a payment being made of circa R335, she questioned why this was not taken by debit order and the call centre advisor said that they don't take direct debits. My mother tried to argue with them and pleaded with them over the nuerous phone calls to supply her with an account and make the delivery of the medication and eventually 8 out of 10 pills on the prescription were delivered, however still no account!</p> <p> </p> <p>I phoned on 30 December and was told exactly the same thing that mediction was not delivered because of a payment not being made and that they would not deliver unti this was made. I got told they would not process a direct debit unless the outstanding money was R1000. I asked to speak to a senior or supervisor and I was told he was on a tea break, I asked to hold and this was refused. I made the payment and sent confirmation whilst over the phone and was promised the delivery would be made on the 3 January 2017. This never happpened and when I called this mornng they said that there was no stock of one of the pills but offered to deliver the other one TOMORROW. I have no confidence that this will happen.</p> <p>HOWEVER I have just logged into my parents bank account and seen that there was a direct debit processed from optipharm for R665, ontop of the payments that I made of R335 my folks account will be in credit now and still no medication.</p> <p> </p> <p>I am completely dissatisifed and disgusted that this service is so bad and that they find it acceptable that my dad is without his chronic medication for such a long time. I also have a fear that this will be a problem every month. The call centre people try to be helpful but the delivery still does not happen. What is going on?</p> <p> </p> <p>My dad is a medshield member medical aid number ********** 7492.</p>