This is going to go pear shaped VERY quickly.!!!!Pietermaritzburg - South Africans will soon obtain their medication from self-service ATM-style machines.This was announced by the South African Ministry of Health on Tuesday at the International Aids Conference taking place this week in Durban.In a statement from the Department of Health, they said the Pharmacy Dispensing Unit (PDU), currently being piloted at Thembalethu clinic in Johannesburg, is a self-service machine where patients can obtain their medication in the same way people withdraw money at an ATM.“To use the machine, all a patient needs to do is register for the service, after which they receive a card that’s similar to a bank card. To ‘withdraw’ their medication, users simply insert their card into the PDU machine, enter their PIN and select the medication they require from their prescription list. The machine immediately dispenses the selected medication, eliminating the need for the patient to wait in queues,” the statement said.The PDU also allows patients to communicate directly with a trained pharmacist from the machine using a built-in video conferencing function.