Mass. pharmacy board director fired for allegedly ignoring complaint about Framingham pharmacy linked to meningitis outbreak
from the article:
The Colorado Board of Pharmacy alerted the US Food and Drug Administration and also contacted Coffey on July 26 about the problem, and Coffey forwarded the information to Manning and department inspectors, but failed to order an investigation, according to a source close to the investigation.
At the time Coffey received the Colorado complaint, two of the three lots of contaminated steroids from New England Compounding had already been shipped to health care facilities around the country, but the third tainted lot was not produced until Aug. 10.
Also the attorney for the BOP has been put on administrative leave.
I am not an attorney… but … IMO… there seems to be a fair amount of NEGLIGENCE… the question is does this negligence start and stop with this one person.. or since this person represented the state of MA… is there any liability there ?
If various healthcare professionals start telling their respective boards that there is a problem at their place of employment… that is affecting patient safety… could the heads of other bureaucrats roll if they fail to act ?
Filed under: General Problems
“Back in the day” board inspectors would come in and inspect the pharmacy facility, check the refrigerator temperature, look for out-dated medications, check licenses, and observe the practice of pharmacy taking place. Now they are only interested in where the narcotics are going.
It is a bit astounding that the Colorado BOP did not act on the complaint. We are talking about an injectable medication. I have had some experiences with the FDA and they are as ‘slow as molasses’ about doing anything. These BOP’s are responsible for patients safety and they had better start doing their job. We know they fail miserably when it comes to enforcing a good work environment for pharmacists. The design of pharmacies are not much different than they were 50 years ago. Come on! It is long past the time that pharmacies should be enclosed where pharmacists and techs are not being constantly distracted. How would you like to fly a plane and know that the mechanic was constantly being interrupted by other people while he was working on the plane you are about to board?