Pilfered Pills At County Pharmacy?

Pharmacies run by the Cook County Health & Hospitals System dispense a lot of medication – 9,500 outpatient prescriptions a day.

But a months-long investigation by the Better Government Association and CBS2 finds the pharmacies themselves with a share of ailments: Shoddy record keeping and lax security that appear to be facilitating stolen or otherwise missing pharmaceuticals.

Patients and employees relayed stories to the BGA and CBS2 of drugs going missing from Stroger Hospital on Chicago's West Side and other county-run health facilities, and the county's inspector general, who launched his own investigation, was so alarmed by the porous nature of the county's pharmacies he asked the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to conduct an in-depth audit.

While those findings have not been formally released, the head of the DEA's Chicago office, Jack Riley, said in an interview that his agency is taking the situation seriously.

He worries that missing medications could end up on the streets, sold illicitly, or otherwise used by drug abusers who end up overdosing.

"These drugs, if not properly accounted for and secured, will kill people . . . and when I see reports like this it doubles our effort to try to make this a better situation for the hospital, but most importantly for . . . the community in which I'm afraid these drugs are gonna end up," Riley said.