Medication Error Exposed
Recently I was with someone who picked up their medications
from the pharmacy, signed for the five medications and we left. In the car, my
passenger looked at the medications and there were six. One had a name, address, and phone number of someone
my passenger didn’t know.
At this major chain store pharmacy, a customer was given the
wrong medication and walked out with it. This is not the first time. We
returned the medication. The woman who I
returned it to did not apologize. She
only said, “I’ll take that back”.
This is why it is so important for people to talk about safe
medical care and treatment. In the Pulse
Center for Patient Safety Education & Advocacy 2022 Patient Safety
Symposium we learned about medication errors and how they happen. Check the
name of the person and the medication when picking up medication was part of
the medication safety presentation. If we don’t share amongst each other what can
go wrong, how can we help avoid an injury or worse. Imagine if the person in my charge took that medication
because many people don’t bother reading the label. It may be only because there were five medications,
we were reviewing which ones they were.
The woman who gave them to us, I’m confident, did not do it
on purpose. Reporting her would not
matter and may only bring unwarranted discipline. She was probably embarrassed enough. What we DO need are more programs
where the public is made aware of these potential errors, and we can be ready to
catch them. Pulse Center for Patient
Safety Education & Advocacy offers these programs. I wish more people would support this.
PS: Giving out the wrong medication also shared another customer’s
name and address and what medication they are taking. I’m not even addressing the lack of privacy
here.
Would you have handled this differently?
