I read with great interest the article about the waste of people’s medication (The Argus, February 3).

A few months ago an elderly relative died. My partner and I had the unfortunate task of clearing her house, which had been her home for more than 80 years.

When we came to her bedroom we found enough medication to supply a small hospital for more than a year. What was frightening was, there were nine bottles of unopened Oromorph, seven boxes (each one the size of a box of 200 cigarettes) of sulpadine painkillers and several unopened boxes of Ibrufen tablets. There were diabetic and blood pressure drugs, many untouched. In all we had two large black refuse bags full of these drugs.

What was more frightening was she was still getting a repeat prescription a month before she died for a drug her hospital consultant had stopped a year before.

I do not know what the answer is. Her GP was just excellent, he would visit on a regular basis. Her district nurse was fantastic and visited almost everyday. Noone asked to see her medicines.

If they had, not only would they have seen the large amount of unused drugs but they would have seen, that in many cases, the use-by date was in the 1980s.

name and address supplied