Walgreens prescription misfills

[jaytee]

Walgreens airs their ads using comfort phrases like, "In the land of perfect" and "The pharmacy you can trust" This fast food style pharmacy is well on the way to being the top drug store in the U.S. This kind of growth is recipe for disaster, Thanks to walgreens interoffice policy of its pharmacy managers being able to offer $500.00 to someone who is a victim of a misfilled prescription, many of the errors go unknown. My husband is a victim of a walgreen misfill, we want others to be warned that the chances of becoming a victim of walgreens greed is greater than anyone would think. My husbands epilepsy medication was misfilled with the wrong strength pill, instead of taking the correct prescribed dose, he took what amounted to one half the dose needed to control and prevent seizures. The grand mal (tonic clonic) seizure he had as a result of the reduced dose, left him unconcious for an unknown amount of time. The head injury caused by the fall against the ceramic tile floor caused him have a concussion, he has since that time had multiple seizure episodes, and they differ from his established seizure pattern. My husband has post concussion syndrome, and post traumatic stress syndrome, he now has both cognitive and speech articulation deficits, and the bodily injury caused by the intensity of the seizure has resulted in spine damage, and nerve compression. It took a 70% removal of his disc to decompress the nerve in his lumbar spine. We hold walgreens accountable but others need to be warned, if any one else has been a victim of a misfill, reply to this message. If you have misfill statistics that are factual, or know of a pending issue, please reply, this is a matter that will not just go away and has changed our lives. We hope that others might be spared the pain, or even lives saved, by this warning. Should any pharmacists read this, what are your experiences concerning misfills?

[PatrickHenry]

Are you suing Walgreens?

[Liberty Landing]

If you're not, you should.

[jaytee]

We are suing. I'm not someone who can do nothing while an entity like Walgreens trades safety for profit. Anyone whos loved one has been a victim of this type of malpractice tries to to do what they can. It is not the way it's portrayed on T.V., a plaintiff against a company like Walgreens is made a victim of twice. First, do to the negligent act, and then you bear the burden of proof in a lawsuit. We have complied with everything and their lawyers have objected to everything. The searches we have done via internet show that Walgreens settles most of their misfill cases out of court, and ensures that a gag order is applied. That's why we continue to search, and why we will not stop trying to share this information so that people will be warned. We feel that it's the right thing to do and may even save someones life!

[Damnitgirl64]

My husband died 4 years ago this month due to a mislabelling by a Walgreens pharmacist. She put the wrong dosage on the label and he overdosed. Walgreens has stalled every inch of the way and argued every little detail. Have you reported them to your state Board of Pharmacy? In most cases, you only have a limited amount of time to do so. I did. It didn't do me much good tho. My state board only gave the pharmacist a $1000.00 fine and ordered her to take an 8 hour class on misfills w/in the next 6 months!!!!! Of course 2 board members are currently employed by Walgreens, one of those was the chairwoman of the board!!! And neither recused themselves from the debate or voting on the administrative complaint. How's that for public servants? I'd be iterested in hearing from you. Today would have been my husband's 50th birthday. Instead of celebrating him and all the gifts and love his birth brought into my life, I'm searching the web for anything I can find about Walgreens and others that they've hurt.

[rosie]

Did Walgreens ever send you a letter apologizing for their negligence?

[Mia]

I am not I defending Walgreens or any other pharmacy, but as long as we're talking warnings, every person should check their prescription before leaving the pharmacy. I have had the doctor call in the wrong dose before, so I never leave without making sure I have the right # of mgs and tablets.

[rosie]

Sure we all should check everything, this was a refill.What exactly is the pharmacist job?
They have safety standards that have been implemented to protect the consumer, shouldn't they be responsible for doing their job? That's why they get paid the big Bucks, six figures, to babysit the the technicians who have no formal training, answer the phones, and take cash. They are first and foremost responsible for checking every prescription that is filled, not most of them, all of them. Walgreens own numbers show they exceed patient safety standards. 65% of their sales come from prescription drug sales, they are understaffed and overworked, but that doesn't stop them from opening another store every day. Staff the pharmacy appropriately, take someone from the floor who is stocking the shelves and let them answer the phones, take cash and let the pharmacist do the job he is trained to do.

[Mia]

I agree, but at the same time, are you not going to take precautions for yourself and look at the label and the pills and make sure it's correct?

I can't imagine opening a prescription and just taking whatever is inside w/o checking.

Walgreens needs to be held legally responsible for their mistake, but we are idiots to depend that much on anyone else.

[Rave7pt0]

Is this just walgreens, or is this a common industry practice?

[grumpy_one]

I wish I had heard something about this earlier. My mother just had open heart surgery (you know how many drugs you get after that) and then two weeks later she went into septic shock because of an infection and almost didn't live (this required another surgery). I filled all of her perscriptions at Walgreens, and I did check the label to make sure that it was the right meds, right dosing, and the instructions were the same as what the doc told me... what I DIDN'T do was check the pills to make sure the right ones were in the bottles. Maybe I just won't go to Walgreens anymore.

[rosie]

We actually think we are not stupid, this was not a new prescription, this was a refill. This was the same pharmacy we have been using for more than ten years. We always check the bottle, right name, right med, right doage. We didn't check the actual pill, it is a night time med, taken at bedtime, stored in the night table along with one other prescription. Out of habit and routine get into bed take night time meds. 30 minutes later can't move, can't speak complete system shutdown. You can bet your life that we now check every script we get. But some one in the pharmacy should be doing everything in their powers to implement safer patient safety standards. The standards are there, they are not following them, nor are they acting responsibly. It is an out and out breach of ethics and job responsibilty on the pharmacy part. The fact that they are not governed by any laws requiring them to report all prescription is totally beyond belief, they only have to report the ones resulting in a death, and they don't even do that, what is a $1000.00 fine to a multi billion dollar company. What about there saying "The pharmacy you can Trust", trust to F up. The customers are the only ones made to pay, they suffer while the pharmacy just moves on to the next mistake.