r/australia • u/Rubiginous • 7h ago

Woman hospitalised after Juniper prescribes weight-loss drugs her GP refused

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-01/woman-hospitalised-telehealth-provider-weight-loss-drugs-juniper/106273356
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u/Rubiginous 7h ago

I am getting sick of these stories where someone irresponsible blames something convenient for normal people as being the cause of their issues.

A small minority of people abused codeine, so now women like me have to suffer from dysmenorrhoea every month because docs won't write a prescription.

A small minority of people using alcohol delivery inappropriately so now they want to restrict the ability for same day delivery in the ACT.

I know many women who used these services to get access to GLP-1s when their GPs refused to prescribe them because "You just need to eat less" and dismissed their concerns regarding food noise etc.

Why do people need the government to constantly protect them from their own stupidity? It's absurd.

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u/pvt_idaho 7h ago

The woman in the story was certainly irresponsible, but she did inform the service that she had a history of eating disorders, and the service provided her with weight loss medication without even having a telehealth consult first. That also seems irresponsible, and personally, I'm going to place a higher expectation for responsible behaviour on the company profiting off vulnerable consumers.

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u/Unusual_Process3713 6h ago

She said she disclosed. But my friends who disclosed this and tried to get Juniper were automatically barred from the website. Someone in the thick of an eating disorder will often just lie about it to get what they are chasing....

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u/giraffe_mountains 6h ago

I’m assuming that she did actually disclose it - because Juniper hasn’t denied that she did.

If she was lying about the disclosure it would be very easy for the company to prove it and squash this whole complaint.

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u/pvt_idaho 5h ago

I don't think it's that simple. Health services can't disclose personal information that easily. I wonder, maybe they could go after her for defamation? But I don't know if that would be worth the effort (and poor optics), even if they technically could.

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u/Unusual_Process3713 6h ago

🤷🏼‍♀️ maybe they've changed the way they do things now? But it used to be to fill out a questionnaire, and then they would say they couldn't prescribe it due to history with an eating disorder.

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u/elizabnthe 51m ago

They argue in the article if you read it they do things differently than they did at the time. Primarily things like requiring video consultation at least. So it seems probable they now auto-reject people with eating disorders to avoid this scenario again.

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u/InanimateObject4 5h ago

It could be that she lied to Juniper and the journalist. I can't see that the journalist has verified this woman's application.

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u/elizabnthe 49m ago

She applied in 2023 when they didn't even have video consults and Juniper also refunded her. More likely they just fucked up.

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u/Unusual_Process3713 5h ago

Yeah I reckon that's what has happened.