- Report: #100791
Complaint Review: Walgreens Pharmacy - Jacksonville Florida
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Walgreens Pharmacy
Corner Of Merrill Rd & Townsend Blvd. Jacksonville, Florida, U.S.A.
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Walgreens Pharmacy ripoff labelled my husbands prescription wrong & he overdosed Jacksonville Florida
On July 23rd 2001 my husband & I presented his script for methadone for pain management to the Walgreens pharmacy. It was filled & was verified by their pharmacy manager, Tonya Pearson (formerly Peters. We picked it up @ 8pm. He took the prescription per the bottle directions. The bottle sd to take 4 pills as needed for chronic pain. There was no "do not exceed" warning on the label. I found my husband dead @ 8:15am on July 25th 2001. My husband was buried w/out an autopsy so I had to petition the medical examiner to exhume my husband's body to verify my gut feeling that the prescription was somehow to blame for his death. He was exhumed Oct.12, 2001. The m.e. amended the death certificate from myocardial infarction to methadone toxicity.
Thru investigation I learned that the doctor had written the script as, "take 4 tablets B.I.D." That means 2 times a day. The pharmacy manager had allowed the pill bottle to be released with the wrong directions, which my husband followed.
We thought nothing of the dosage as the doctor had told us this was a cleaner safer drug with virtually no side effects and this was a relief to us & we were grateful to get him off his old painkiller - oxycontin.
The pharmacy stalled for over a year in producing the script for my review, and then violated the Florida Pharmacy Act by failing to advise the Florida Division of Medical Quality Assurance (the investigative unit of the Florida Boeard of Pharmacy)that they had made an error that resulted in the death of my husband. By their own admission all they did was to file an internal incident report that was sent to their corporate offices in Chicago.
This "pharmacist" still retains her position with Walgreens as a pharmacy manager, although at a different location in Jacksonville, Florida.
Pearl
Jacksonville, Florida
U.S.A.
Thru investigation I learned that the doctor had written the script as, "take 4 tablets B.I.D." That means 2 times a day. The pharmacy manager had allowed the pill bottle to be released with the wrong directions, which my husband followed.
We thought nothing of the dosage as the doctor had told us this was a cleaner safer drug with virtually no side effects and this was a relief to us & we were grateful to get him off his old painkiller - oxycontin.
The pharmacy stalled for over a year in producing the script for my review, and then violated the Florida Pharmacy Act by failing to advise the Florida Division of Medical Quality Assurance (the investigative unit of the Florida Boeard of Pharmacy)that they had made an error that resulted in the death of my husband. By their own admission all they did was to file an internal incident report that was sent to their corporate offices in Chicago.
This "pharmacist" still retains her position with Walgreens as a pharmacy manager, although at a different location in Jacksonville, Florida.
Pearl
Jacksonville, Florida
U.S.A.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Midwest Pharmd.
Chicago,Illinois,
U.S.A.
Not the whole story
#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Fri, October 24, 2008
So let me first start out by saying I am sorry for your loss. However, they did put more than take 4 tablets as needed...I believe the directions actually stated take "4 tablets twice daily as needed" (which is a completely different story.) Max dosing on methadone is almost nonexistant. I have patients that burn through about 800 pills a month. In other words there is no set max dose for methadone, it depends on the patient. However, the max dose based on the directions was listed at 8 tablets a day (which is what 4 tablets twice daily means). I'm sorry but there needs to be some patient responsibility here, based on everything I have read the pharmacist was not at fault and does not deserve to be fired. Any time a patient has questions they can always get in touch with a pharmacist.
Gmurator
Naperville,Illinois,
U.S.A.
Pharmacist should be fired
#3UPDATE EX-employee responds
Tue, July 29, 2008
At the walgreens I used to work at, a former pharmacist gave a child's prescription like 1/2 a milligram over what they were supposed to take. The mother noticed this, and the child did not take the precription, but the pharmacist got fired anyway. It makes no sense that the same didn't happen in your case, especially since DEATH resulted in the mistake.
