Pharmacy Mistakes Kill
Posted by
Dan FrithFebruary 13, 2008 6:13 AMMy law firm is getting ready to try a case against a local pharmacy which filled and dispensed a doctor's prescription for medication to which our client was allergic. You may ask, "Why did the client take a medication to which she knew she was allergic"? The answer is that she was given the generic form of the drug - the pills did not look the same and the generic name was no where close to the name of the medication to which she was allergic. The prescribing doctor has accepted his responsibility and paid money damages to our client but the pharmacy has not. The pharmacy is taking the position that it has no responsibility to its customers to maintain records which reflect known drug allergies of the patient. Pretty arrogant isn't it?
In connection with our trial preparation we ran across two recently reported cases against pharmacies and thought we would share the results of those two cases with our readers.
1. In Sloan v. Eckerd Drug (Pennsylvania) the patient went to her Eckerd pharmacy to fill a prescription for clonidine, a drug she used to control hypertension or high blood pressure. The pharmacy filled the prescription with clonazepam, a medicaiton which poses a risk of dependency. The patient took the medication for 3 weeks and experienced headaches, memory loss, and depression. She became addicted to the drug and required outpatient psychiatric treatment. She sued the pharmacy and her pharmacist and the case settled before trial for $250,000.
2. In Warren v. Walgreens (Arizona) a 31 year old patient who suffered from chronic pain was prescribed Tramadol and Methadone by his doctor. He filled the prescription at Walgreens pharmacy, which dispensed the Methadone in a pill that was twice the prescribed dosage. After taking the two drugs for several days, the patient suffered central nervous system depression and died. His estate filed a suit against the pharmacy on behalf of his two minor children and a jury awarded the children $6 million for the wrongful death of their father.
My conclusion: Pharmacists are medical professionals and the law holds them responsible when they fail to act like it!