Pharmacist mistakes abortion drug for antibiotic

A US teen could lose her baby after a pharmacist mistakenly gave her a powerful abortion drug instead of the antibiotic her doctor prescribed.

Mareena Silva, 19, who is six weeks pregnant, was written a prescription to deal with a bacterial infection, US network ABC reported.

Instead the Colorado woman was given methotrexate, a drug used for early-stage pregnancy termination as well as chemotherapy.

news.ninemsn.com.au...

Just WOW..
How could this happen?
It would be a nightmare not knowing what may follow..
The poor girl may lose her child or it may be born with defects...
The waiting would be torture..

What a trajic mistake....

Medical errors happen. Any area where humans are involved accidents and errors are going to occur. It's a a tragic fact of life. How does it happen? Everyone makes mistakes, there is no one who does not make a mistake of some sort from time to time, the medical field is no different.

Originally posted by _Highlander_
Medical errors happen. Any area where humans are involved accidents and errors are going to occur. It's a a tragic fact of life. How does it happen? Everyone makes mistakes, there is no one who does not make a mistake of some sort from time to time, the medical field is no different.

To me, it seems as if you are blowing this off as if it is similar to a waitress adding sugar to the coffee that you ordered 'black."

This is a bit more than that. This is not a simple little error. This is a paid employee of a pharmacy. He/she has ONE thing to do. That would be to supply people with the medicines that they were prescribed. This is not a light situation. This is very serious for this girl and her baby. This one little tiny mistake, as you put it, may cause her child to die, or to be born with some sort of defects. I expect and hope that this person faces heavy penalties for this.

theres no way it was just a simple error. out of alllllllllll the things that they mistakenly could've given her it had to be an abortion pill? why couldnt she get some muscle relaxers or something?

reply to post by BrokenCircles


So you have never made a mistake? Just because the situation is serious does not give you a super human ability to avoid mistakes, it helps the ability to fight off error but no process involving human beings in its chain is with out error. In this instance the situation should be looked at to see why the error occurred and a new system to be put in place to avoid it happening again. If the pharmacist does his best as a general rule, and does not have any previous history then it is just a potentially tragic mistake. Ruining another life with heavy penalties for a mistake that was an accident is not the answer.

thats bull#, as for the person who says "MEDICAL ERROR" whats wrong with you? there should be zero errors when it comes to people's medication, thats why they go to school and get an education. this just pisses me off

reply to post by ANClENT


And what type of education do you have?

Edit ;

No amount of education does away with the statistical chance of error, it can minimize it a whole lot, but when dealing with people, you can never remove it.

reply to post by _Highlander_

Originally posted by _Highlander_
reply to post by BrokenCircles

 

So you have never made a mistake? Just because the situation is serious does not give you a super human ability to avoid mistakes,

For the record. I am done talking to you after this reply.

Of course I have made mistakes. I have made lots of them. I have not claimed to have any abilities at all, especially not any super human abilities. This isn't about me, and this isn't about humans in general tending to make errors. This is about a MAJOR mistake that SHOULD have never happened. There is NO EXCUSE for it. Your comments are obviously nothing more than trying to stir up others.

reply to post by _Highlander_

How does it happen? Everyone makes mistakes, there is no one who does not make a mistake of some sort from time to time, the medical field is no different.

I can only go by what happens here in Australia..

Here, no longer are prescriptions written out in unreadable hand writing, they are PRINTED by the doctor..
In the Phamacies it's only TRAINED pharmacists that are allowed to dispense medication..

If it is a mere mistake then it is a terrible one....

reply to post by BrokenCircles


No excuse for it huh? ...'There can be no justice when laws are absolute'. Off with a the pharmacists head you say? That will help everyone and make everything better.

reply to post by backinblack



I think you've given me an idea that could save lives.

I don't know the exact solution, but you've got me thinking about it. Medicine comes in all shapes and sizes nowadays. For example, cold medicine comes in every color of the rainbow. Perhaps it would be better if we used some kind of color coded system. For example, all dangerous medicine would come in a red bottle or perhaps we could color code the medicine based on what type of medicine it is. Antibiotics are one color, antivirals another and so forth.

Like maybe weaker antibiotics could come in a blue bottle with a blue pill or something while the more powerful antibiotics would come in a red bottle.

Or maybe you could use a two color system where one color tells you what type of medicine it is, and the other tells you how powerful it is. If the doctor handed you anything with the color red on it, you might be like, hey, WTF, this looks dangerous. I better check this out.

Also, anything that can cause permanent damage should pop up warnings when you scan it on the computer.

I don't know for sure what the solution is, but if anyone thinks of anything.

reply to post by backinblack


I can tell you that not every pharmacy in Australia conforms to those standards. Virtually no area of the medical industry is immune from 'Doctors' hand writing (It's not just doctors, it's every role a little bit).

reply to post by tinfoilman


The problems is getting the whole world to confirm to one standard, and that is going to take a long time if it will ever happen at all. There not much the world agrees upon right now.

Originally posted by _Highlander_
reply to post by backinblack

 

I can tell you that not every pharmacy in Australia conforms to those standards. Virtually no area of the medical industry is immune from 'Doctors' hand writing (It's not just doctors, it's every role a little bit).

I can't personally account for every doctor and chemist in Australia but would you care to point out specific ones that don't conform?

I can then check...

Many of these mistakes are caused by pharmacist misreading the doctors handwriting.

All these can be fixed if doctors would use the National Drug Code (NDC) along with the name of the drug.

If the name of the drug does not match the NDC then the pharmacist would know there was a problem.

Medicaid, The military and VA all use NDC for there drug billing and recording.
And they have very very low rates of drug mistakes.

Originally posted by _Highlander_
reply to post by tinfoilman

 

The problems is getting the whole world to confirm to one standard, and that is going to take a long time if it will ever happen at all. There not much the world agrees upon right now.

But the drug they gave her was one that KILLS..
No easy way to say it other than that...

Surely there are NOT that many drugs prescribed that are there to KILL...
Therefore wouldn't it be reasonable for the Pharmacist to CONFIRM with the customer what they were getting??

reply to post by backinblack


Paracetamol can kill, all drugs are poison in the right quantity.

People need to educate themselves on what they are taking, and not blindly swallow pills just because a man in a white suit give them the pill.

In reply to the other post there are doctors in my local area that still hand write drugs on script pads because they don't use computers(Usually elderly docs that probably should retire), or are away from a computer when a script is required.

Originally posted by _Highlander_
reply to post by backinblack

 

Paracetamol can kill, all drugs are poison in the right quantity.

People need to educate themselves on what they are taking, and not blindly swallow pills just because a man in a white suit give them the pill.

In reply to the other post there are doctors in my local area that still hand write drugs on script pads because they don't use computers(Usually elderly docs that probably should retire), or are away from a computer when a script is required.

edit on 9-2-2011 by _Highlander_ because: SP.

NO mate..
You are talking about drugs that "may" kill under certain cirumstances..

The drug this Pharmacist gave by mistake was designed "TO KILL"..

HUGE difference in my eyes and SHOULD always be questioned before being given..

Is that not a fair call???

reply to post by backinblack


Well, the pharmacist handed over the wrong packet, he probably did not follow procedure correctly. In order to have a better understanding we need to know why he did not follow procedure, and that information is not there. If the pharmacist neglected to follow procedure(do his job), then he should face penalties if there is a problem with the girl or her baby(and he will understand this as the risk of his job), the severity of the penalty should be proportional to the crime,and if the girl and her baby are fine, then no sever penalty will likley apply if he/she has not a history of things like that. If however the problem is one of procedure, the a new protocol would need to be implemented to avoid future incidents.

Originally posted by _Highlander_
reply to post by backinblack

 

Well, the pharmacist handed over the wrong packet, he probably did not follow procedure correctly. In order to have a better understanding we need to know why he did not follow procedure, and that information is not there. If the pharmacist neglected to follow procedure(do his job), then he should face penalties if there is a problem with the girl or her baby(and he will understand this as the risk of his job), the severity of the penalty should be proportional to the crime,and if the girl and her baby are fine, then no sever penalty will likley apply if he/she has not a history of things like that. If however the problem is one of procedure, the a new protocol would need to be implemented to avoid future incidents.

From the start you sound like you are sticking up for the Pharmacist.
So it appears like you are involved in the industry..Correct me if I'm wrong..

So one quick question...

How many drugs does a Pharmacist carry that have the SOLE purpose of KILLING.??