To think this mother was partly at fault

[phantomhairpuller]

pharmacy dispenses ear drops for conjunctivitis

Surely the daft cow should have read the label, no?!

Do people really put things into their children's eyes without first reading the directions?

And as for the poor child's name...

[MammaTJ]

I always double check, but then I am allowed to administer meds in my place of work. I do not expect the average person to check!

I had an incedent once when the Opth....... eye doctor prescribed some eye drops for my DS. The pharmacy did not have the eye drops so the GP prescribed an alternative. I checked the leaflet once we had collected it and found it was not suitable for children under 6. He was three at the time. Did I report him? No. Did I complain to the GP and the pharmacy? Yes. In my view, both the pharmacist and the GP were at fault but there was no real harm done.

[ZingWidge]

fryone

poor you

I had a bad reaction to iron tablets whilst pg - just the average gp presciption stuff.

they were 2 tablets/ day but high dose. I took 2 on the first day and felt unwell by the evening. took another in the morning, did school run, went shopping (feeling increasingly ill) - by the time I got home I had to lie down, I was shaking slightly, felt dizzy and sick (not morning sickness) and felt drowsy and faint.

it was horrible. I had to call a friend to come over and help put shopping away, then look after me and my youngest.

I'm sure it was the tablets and stopped.

took me 2 days to get back to normal! switched to a much lower dose of iron tablet and was ok.

another pg mum I know had even more severe reactions just after 1 of the same iron tablet. neither of us knew we could react so badly, despite reading the leaflets!

[WellThatsLife]

Every pharmacists worst nightmare. We double, triple check but occasionally things get missed. Similar packaging, similar names, someone coming up to talk to about a problem causing a loss of concentration.

As others have said above any pharmacist who says they have never made a mistake is lying or they have never come back to them

[BlueSkySunnyDay]

The pharmacist is wrong but I think as a parent I would always check that what I was giving was right.

[FryOneFatManic]

I must say I always check the leaflet inside now, especially to check on what the reactions could be.

I've been wary since a pharmacist told me that Voltarol was a good medicine with few side effects (prescribed by doctor for tendonitis). After a handful of doses, I nearly collapsed. Turns out I was past the mild, moderate and medium side effects and heading into severe. Doc has since told me that it now rules out a whole group of anti inflammatory drugs, so I sincerely hope I don't develop any condition that requires them.

[Loa]

I'd check but then I have many relatives on lots of medication and two of them have had potentially fatal errors - series dosage errors - made at different pharmacists - luckily they spotted them in time.

I've also had a pharmacist pick up issues when GP have prescribed medicines that can't be taken with existing prescribed medicines.

[phantomhairpuller]

Surely a job working with medication is one where mistakes shouldn't be made? They should be double checking, triple checking everything they prescribe. Since that is, you know, their job.

Absolutely. But the fact of the matter is, mistakes happen. They shouldn't happen, but they do.

[AmyFarrahFowlerCooper]

Surely a job working with medication is one where mistakes shouldn't be made? They should be double checking, triple checking everything they prescribe. Since that is, you know, their job.

[kooksi]

It's quite a nice name

[phantomhairpuller]

Nigel, MY opinion. Clearly different to yours. That's life

[mrsravelstein]

i always take the leaflet out of the box and read everything before i take any medicine or give any to my kids - checking if there are any contraindications, reactions to other medications, checking that its the right medicine for what's wrong - there have been many many occasions when i've been prescribed something that turns out to be inappropriate for one reason or another. and yes i read all the small print on legal documents etc too. i am amazed that people don't.

[OhDearNigel]

IMO the mother wants to be bloody grateful that her child suffered nothing more than a slight allergic reaction

Nice

[OhDearNigel]

Lots of caribbean women have names like Cherish, maybe its a family name. I cant see its any different to Hope, Charity, Grace or Faith

[Sallystyle]

I had a similar incident when my son was prescribed antibiotics.

The pharmacist wrote the wrong dosage on the bottle so he was getting double the dose three times a day. After two dosages I worked it out that it couldn't be right but to start with I just trusted that she knew what she was doing.

I got a letter of apology.

[phantomhairpuller]

IMO the mother wants to be bloody grateful that her child suffered nothing more than a slight allergic reaction. Things could have been a whole lot worse and for that reason the pharmacist needs a bloody good slap on the wrists but does not deserve to lose his/her job over it.

As a few people have already said, we're all human and we ALL make mistakes. In this instance, you learn from it and you move forward.

Selling the story to the papers is a blatant attempt at getting a nice bit of compensation.

[pianodoodle]

I think it's disproportionate for her to call for the pharmacist to lose their job.

[justmatureenough2bdad]

i certainly sympathise with the mum in this situation i hate, hate, hate "i want whoever is responsible for this struck off"....no argument that it was a mistake, but it was neither fatal nor, it would seem, even particularly injurious.

As such it doesn't justify such a demand. Perhaps request an investigation and some indication of a process review to ensure that this doesn't happen again.

perspective........

[pharmacist]

Idocrazythings yes nowadays things are different, we now have written SOPs to tell us 'check the medication is right' and if the medication isn't right then we can be beaten with the SOP folder as well. Errors still happen.

The Swiss Cheese model is a good one I think, you can do everything in your power to reduce the number of holes but there's still the possibility that the holes will line up and an error will get through. That's why planes still crash even though the airlines' safety measures are far far stricter than any doctor's or pharmacist's.

I don't expect anyone to analyse what's in their medication, but the mum could have read the word 'ear' instead of 'eye' on the box, had she read the box.

Not excusing errors, we all feel horrible when one happens, more in a 'what could have happened' sense, we all like to think all our checks are failsafe but they're not, one minor, no-harm error could easily have been the one that kills someone.

Off to work now, 800 prescriptions to check today, enjoy the sunshine everyone

[LookMaw]

The pharmacist is at fault, obviously. (I personally always read the little leaflet that comes with medicines, and google them. But that's just me and my weird thirst for medical knowledge)

But going to the papers and demanding they lose their entire career because of one simple human error, that luckily didn't do any real harm?

Clearly the mother has never made a mistake.

[ZingWidge]

I tend to check the label for info, dosage etc - but never to deliberately confirm what I was given!

anyway I can't check what's in the bottle!
there could have been a mix up with the content - noone would have known!

yes, I trust to be given the right thing.

[StuntGirl]

Of course the mother should have checked. Reading the instructions is important every time you get new medication. If you blindly put your trust in 'professionals' you are a fool. As qualified and intelligent as they are they are human too.

And the pharmacist should, of course, have given the correct medication. I sincerely doubt it was deliberate. Mistakes unfortunately happen. S/he will probably get struck off.

[Idocrazythings]

Pharmacist yes errors occur, as you said. I have made them, in the past, and anyone who says they haven't just doesn't know about the mistake they have made (or lying as you said!), BUT isn't that why we have so many checks procedures and policies in place now? It is now 2013 and a very different world and working place to when I first graduated in 1996. I really think nowadays the way guidelines are structured and safeguarded means errors should not be excusable. And anyone giving out a medication is accountable.

[Idocrazythings]

She took the baby back to check when her eyes were going red, which shows common sense. If she was stupid she'd have kept giving them. I'm agreeing with others who say maybe she does not have a high degree of literacy. When a pharmacist is labelling and handing over a medication they are responsible.

[kali110]

Doc at a walk in center once gave me a prescription for someone in their eighteens. Im in my twenties :-/

[Joiningthegang]

My kids get eye drops for use in their ears

Yabu