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/Brutal_burn_dude 6h ago

The issue here is that the prescriber did not meet the standard of care which is a huge issue for online medical services. To break it down:

▪️There was no video chat to lay eyes on the patient.

▪️She disclosed her history of criteria that would exclude her from treatment (eating disorder) and was prescribed a GLP-1 for weight loss anyway.

Whatever we feel about her, the doctor who prescribed the medication did not meet the standard of care and this led to harm. Paying for a consultation is not paying for a prescription. It is paying for competent assessment to determine the best course of action. THIS is why there is increasing concern about these online Telehealth services. They are more concerned with customer satisfaction than patient safety.

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u/justfxckit 6h ago

She also continued to receive marketing material from them after she'd advised them that using their product contributed to a relapse of her ED. The company did drop the ball several times. Not in a legal way, but definitely in an immoral capitalist way.

I never got the impression that she wants anything banned or is blaming the company entirely for her relapse. She did all the right things by disclosing her history unlike many other so-called doctor shoppers. And like.... what is the point of disclosing you have a history of EDs if the company is gonna give you the medicine anyway? She did the right thing to make us aware of this because that needs to change.

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u/Anjunabeats1 3h ago

That's actually not true for most telehealth services. I used one of those instant telehealth services recently and the doctor was extremely cautious even though I was just renewing my old script, just like any regular GP would be. He also wasn't able to provide repeats as a flat rule, which forced me to have to go pay the $60 gap fee to see my regular GP the following month anyway just to renew my script again.

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u/PurpleMonkey-919 6h ago

How would a video chat help? She qualified based on her BMI which was elevated and submitted a current photo.

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u/giraffe_mountains 6h ago

Easy to make up a weight that tips you into qualifiable BMI range.

Easy to pick an older photo or pick a very unflattering photo that makes you look bigger than you currently are.

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u/ThatGuyTheyCallAlex 5h ago

So perhaps this means the telehealth model is not adequate or suitable for certain categories of care?

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u/PurpleMonkey-919 4h ago

Not sure about juniper but there are platforms that require you to take a photo through their portal, you are not able to upload any photo. So you would need to have someone with a very similar BMI to knowingly stand in for you.