Q&A: What are my rights?
Monday November 09 2009
I had a chest infection recently and I went to my doctor who gave me a prescription for an antibiotic. I had an adverse reaction to the drug. On investigation it looks like the doctor prescribed the wrong medication. The doctor is still blaming the pharmacist -- who he says misread the script. I'm angry about the whole thing and shocked that it can happen. What can I do?
Medication errors are a big problem in healthcare worldwide. One report stated that errors in medical management cause between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths each year in American hospitals. In the US it's even suggested that the rate of serious medication error is seven per cent of all treatments.
It's not just hospitals that have medication-error problems. GPs are also very concerned about medication errors and there are some similar statistics. One report from medical insurer the Medical Defence Union found that 25pc of legal claims against general practitioners related to medication errors.
Another study of prescription mistakes found an error rate of four per 1,000 on the prescription forms. Interestingly, drug allergies accounted for 12pc of problems with patients when these mistakes occur.
There is strong legislation covering the prescribing of medication in Ireland.
The Medicinal Regulations (2003) contains the basic regulations for prescribing medicines. Under law each prescription has to contain the name, the preparation, the dose, the frequency and duration of the medicine.
The law states that each prescription should be accurate, appropriate and unambiguous. If there is a mistake in prescription writing then the doctor may be negligent. I see that the doctor and the pharmacist are trying to spread the blame in your case. This does not impinge the chances of taking a case.
For example, in the case of Prendergast v Sam & Dee Ltd, a GP wrote a prescription for a patient suffering from a respiratory-tract infection. One of the drugs was amoxil but the pharmacist misread the written prescription and instead prescribed daonil, a medicine designed to lower blood sugar, which is used by diabetics.
This is a recognised danger of dispensing worldwide. American studies have identified frequent dispensing errors such as selection of the wrong strength or wrong product. These studies have found that this happens primarily when two or more drugs have a similar appearance or similar name -- the so called look-a-like or sound-a-like errors.
The patient in the Prendergast case was not diabetic and the dose of daonil prescribed was several hundred times the recommended safe level. They suffered irreversible brain damage as a consequence of a dramatic fall in blood-sugar levels.
The chemist was liable for the dispensing error and the doctor was also held liable for writing a barely legible script. The doctor was held to be 25pc liable because of the appearance of the prescription while the pharmacist was found to have 75pc of the liability for negligently dispensing the prescription.
If you decide to take a case it would be a medical negligence action -- a civil action. The doctor must prove that the treatment he provided was the accepted treatment for the illness and that another GP would have acted in the same way. The same standard holds for the pharmacist who must prove they have not acted negligently.
Mary Kirwan is a barrister at law and can be contacted at mkirwan@independent.ie
Irish Independent
