30/08/2026
Everyoneās probably sick and tired of hearing about the Eduardoās supplies saga but yep itās still ongoing. So much stress every damn order. Can you even imagine how stressful this would be for anyone already having a hard time mentally coping with a stoma and that is the majority of Ostomates. Very few are like me, totally accepting and loving their little scrunchy faced s**tty friend.
Prescription rules are you ideally should order 7 days before supplies run out of any particular medication. GPās arenāt keen when you order too soon. Prudent people of course order 2 weeks ahead because well somehow GPās surgeryās seem to have more bank holidays and training days etc than the rest of the country and are often slow to respond in the first place. And for Ostomates we are told we can only order 1 monthās supply at a time. I actually order 3 months supply at a time because the ordering situation is so ridiculous plus it saves the NHS time and money if I do. I mean itās not like my stoma is going to heal and go away so how ridiculous to keep running back every month for supplies clogging up the system. This way the GP only has to stop and sign once every 3 months. Anyhow that aside here we are. I ordered Eduardoās new suits on the 4th August and remember Iām supposed to order a week or 2 out. Itās now the 30th of August and I am still no closer to getting colostomy bags for him.
Now no one panic. I am fine. Eduardo is fine. I had a monthās supply left when I ordered which of course I have mostly used now. But I also had an old box of 20 which eons ago they actually cut to the wrong size. I have been able to re-cut them to the correct size so thatās an extra 20 bags and given on average I use one every other day itās another monthās supply. But thatās not really the point and itās just lucky I do.
This system really needs to change. Itās ridiculous for us Ostomates, itās ridiculous for them.
Again, all that asideā¦.I have proof my GP approved the prescription on the 14th August. So yeah, not really in a timely manner being signed 10 days after being submitted and only then because I marched into the office on the 13th and demanded, yes demanded someone sort it out there and then. Got the pharmacist and local stoma nurses involved that day just to get a damn regular prescription signed.
All of that now led to another problem. Oakmed, my stoma bag supplier and manufacturer have been bought out by a company called Unora who have lovely pamphlets about their stress free ordering and delivery service. How they put me the client first to meet my stoma needs on a Gold care level. All sounds great, Iām onboard for all of that except itās now the 30th and to date they are claiming they donāt have a signed prescription from my GP which apparently gets sent snail mail via Scotland NHS who don.t yet have e-scripts. How much money is snail mailing thousands of prescriptions every day costing NHS Scotland which in turn is us the taxpayers? Absolutely shameful in this day and age not to mention the carbon footprint on that too. Iām appalled. Wouldnāt even believe it if I wasnāt experiencing it for myself.
And everytime I speak with Unora representatives on the phone I feel Iām being fed a line of BS. They had called and offered me samples which never arrived.
When I called to ask where they were I was told they had been dispatched.
They had not.
I gave up.
Eff their samples if they canāt get their products out in a timely manner.
Then out of the blue 2 weeks after that I get a call from a guy there. He asks if I got the samples and I tell him no. He says he was just checking because he noticed they hadnāt been dispatched.
Then why ask!
He apologised and says it was an oversight as he was away on vacation and forgot the dispatch order.
I understand and itās a simple error anyone could make except in the background I can hear a bank of callers all repeating the same excuse en masse.
What a damn joke. What kind of company instructs its employees to so obviously lie and what kind of employee does so to ostomates?
And speaking of lies. Different Unora employee tells me itās my GP holding things up on my regular prescription and how sheās called them 3 times with no response. Except that again is the same line I was fed about my last GP.
She tells me she will call them again and get back to me.
Been a week and Iām still waiting for her to get back to me about, if you remember, what is technically a prescription Iām supposed to order 7 days prior to needing.
The system is ridiculous and the client, me, has nowhere to turn to get any help navigating it because the GP claims itās the stoma supplier and the stoma supplier blames the GP but them blaming one another doesnāt get us our colostomy bags and these are not an item you can go a day without. Actually you canāt go 15 minutes without one let alone an hour or day because Eduardo is going to continuously output by the minute whether thereās a bag there or not.
Like I said, Iām not panicking but I am mad, really, really, really angry and not even so much angry for me but rather for all the mentally vulnerable Ostomates who might still be in the early stages of their journey.
Back then for me, this situation had me mentally suicidal and I donāt say that lightly. Thatās where my head space was in the early days. If it hadnāt been for Frank sitting beside the first time I ran out of bags I wouldnāt now be here typing this post.
I had been given an appointment at the stoma clinic where I was supposed to be given my first ever order of supplies. I was wearing my last bag from the supplies given to me upon my discharge from hospital weeks earlier and this last bag had already been on a day longer then it should. I was desperate to change it.
Iād been clinging on to the thought that finally Iād get my supplies sorted and ordered only to find after a 2 hour drive to the clinic and upon arrival that the clinic had shut down a week earlier and no one had informed me or cancelled my appointment.
Back then it was the last straw for me.
I sat in a waiting amongst a bunch of people all no doubt staring at this stupid woman crying her eyes out. I was so mentally gone. I would have caught the elevator to the top floor and just leapt. To this day thereās no doubt in my mind I would have done it. Iād been feeling suicidal for months because of my stoma. I was barely hanging in there mentally and the thought of now having no bag to catch Eduardoās s**t just pushed me mentally over the ledge.
But Frank was there and he blew his stack after everything Iād been put through even the reason I have a non reversible stoma in the first place and why I had to almost die to get it which is wholly the NHSās fault.
Obviously these days Iām in a much better mental place but not so far removed from it that I donāt remember what that felt like. So this battling every single order and the stress every single order just to get ostomy supplies makes me so very, very, very angry.
And then you get a bunch of people on here commenting, āOh well I get my supplies regular as clockwork every month.ā Blah, blah, blah. Sick of hearing those stupid, yes stupid comments. Yes we all get our supplies regular as clockwork every month until we donāt. Until,thereās a problem and then what?
Iāve had this stoma over 2 years and you think Iāve had this aggravation every month for 2 years?
No of course I havenāt.
Worked great for me every month too until suddenly it doesnāt. So those comments are as stupid as the āWell if I can lose weight, everyone canā comments. They are also not helpful. What is helpful is to help change the damn system.
My stoma isnāt going to get better and itās not going away. It should be a simple system for those of us with non reversible stomas to have a lifetime prescription or at least an annual one where we can draw down from that long standing prescription without bothering GPās every month. Only if we need extra supplies or a change of product should it be re-evaluated. Thatās fu***ng clockwork. Not making phone calls every month, running around after signatures every month and thinking to yourself how great a system it is for you because itās working for you when for some it clearly isnāt.
Is this a rant. Absofu***nglutely it is! Because without this spare box of miscut sized oneās I would be typing this out today with a naked stoma and tomorrow is a bank holiday.
Anyhow Iām sick of talking about it and even thinking about it and Iām sick of being lied to.
On a brighter note, Eduardo has kept me alive long enough to enjoy another beautiful sunset. One of many I would not have experienced without my s**tty little friend. So I am forever grateful he does his job so well and consider every š© a precious gift from him because it buys me another day.
And if I end up having to walk around bagless Iām not going to care. As far as Iām concerned thatās a problem for people around me, not my problem. I let Eduardo give a s**t so I donāt have to.
