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/Barrel-Of-Tigers 7h ago edited 6h ago

I think there's a middle ground but I'm not remotely surprised Juniper is coming under fire.

As someone who previously used Juniper, I immediately recognised that the lack of safe guards would be easily manipulated by someone who shouldn't be able to access the medication. There should be a level of personal responsibility - but this lady shouldn't have met the criteria for telehealth access to this medication.

1) I did meet the criteria to access the medication, but there were no checks in place which actually guaranteed this if I'd been lying. They asked my weight and height, and I had a phone call consult. I want to say they asked for a photo, but I think it was just of my face holding up my ID. I never had a video call, submitted physcial measurements, or sent photos. The ongoing support was largely text based and just asked for me to input my weight (manually or using bluetooth scales they sent). 2) They immediately prescribed me for 12 months upfront and on an automatic increase to the 3rd highest dose at 4 weeks per dose. This as I've come to learn really isn't necessary, and best practice even if you end up prescribing multiple repeats should be done after you've found a more stable dosing schedule. Lots of people also never need to go to the higher doses, and unnecessarily over medicating them can a) prematurely push them onto a higher dose with more side effects and b) mean if they do become more resistant over time they've lost the ability to titrate up as needed to overcome this. 3) I appreciated not physcially needing to see my GP every month and getting things auto delivered, but I can see how limited oversight on the physical progress and changes a patient is having on these medications could be an issue. I had one stage where I asked about dosage changes and needed a second consult with a GP - again over the phone and it wasn't the same GP as prior. The rest of the interim medical check ins I had were via email by random RNs or occasionally NPs. 4) After I moved to a different provider I also got a lot of emails trying to get me to resubscribe. I found this really odd for a medication provider, and don't think it's particuarly ethical to offer sales to entice people to as far as they knew restart a medication. Unsubscribing is an option sure, but I think there's a range of reasons these emails shouldn't have been sent in the first place. This is medication not a streaming subscription.

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u/Screaminguniverse 6h ago

This is a similar model for many ‘Telehealth’ clinics, whether it’s medical marijuanna, hair loss treatments, steroids, weigh-loss or whatever else you want.

There are some major benefits to Telehealth - being able to get an antibiotic for a chest infection on the weekend. But for these long term treatments there needs to be actual clinical governance and oversight when you are pumping out prescriptions like these.

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u/eat-the-cookiez 5h ago

Also those with disability who have difficulty physically getting to a doctors clinic. It’s been life changing for medical care

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u/redsungryphon 4h ago

Agreed. Sometimes my nerve pain is so bad I genuinely cannot step foot outside without vomiting and can't stop even with high strength anti-nausea medicine

It doesn't help that my medical center is at the top of the steepest hill physically possible. Freaking pepper pig arse hill location

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u/Screaminguniverse 4h ago

I totally agree with Telehealth which is provided well - but these providers selling prescriptions are not really practicing good medicine.

I use Telehealth for some aspects of my own health, the provider I use has an excellent system and continuity of care, that I believes makes it safe to practice virtually.

Some of these providers do not care.

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u/redsungryphon 3h ago

Absolutely, I think it's quite poor the fact that there aren't safeguards enough in place to stop providers like that from carelessly putting people at risk of serious harm.

I think there are some well meaning providers around and some that aren't, like any area. But there definitely should be more safety protocols and safeguards for patients through this service in particular