Medication mix-up lands teen in emergency room
SOUTHINGTON, CT (WFSB) — A Southington teen was hospitalized recently after she took the wrong prescription pills because of a medication mix-up by her local pharmacy.
Alyssa Watrous, 17, had recently felt strange after picking up her prescription for asthma medication at a CVS pharmacy in Southington.
“Just throughout the day on Friday I didn’t feel good because I was feeling all the side effects,” Alyssa Watrous said.
“She had side effects from it such as nausea weakness dizziness pounding headache,” her mom Jill Watrous said.
After taking the pills from CVS for two days, Alyssa realized there had been a terrible mix up.
“She called me, ‘mom, mom there’s somebody else’s name on my medicine’,” Jill Watrous said.
It turns out, Alyssa had been taking blood pressure medication instead of her asthma pills.
CVS had accidentally given Alyssa the wrong prescription and she had been taking a lot of it.
Commonly for the medication she had, you’d take one pill a day for an adult and she was taking three at a time, because she was following the directions for her medication.
Jill Watrous called CVS and poison control right away. They said Alyssa had technically overdosed on the blood pressure pills and should go to the emergency room.
Fortunately, doctors told Alyssa she had come in just in time to avoid serious problems.
“They said thank goodness, there wouldn’t be any long-term effects, that it’s something will leave your system,” Alyssa Watrous said.
In a statement, CVS admitted to the error saying “We sincerely apologize to Ms. Watrous and her family. Prescription errors are a very rare occurrence, but if one does happen, we do everything we can to learn from it in order to continuously improve quality and patient safety.”
Jill appreciates the apology but says the CVS’ mix-up has taught her family a valuable lesson.
“I just think it’s important for people not to take for granted that the pharmacies always doing the right thing and that they don’t make mistakes, because clearly it happens,” she said.
From now on, the Watrous family says they will be even more diligent by checking the information on the bottle is accurate and even looking up pictures of the correct pill to make sure they are taking the right medication.
Filed under: General Problems
Sooo…she read the dosage instructions but never noticed that the name & med were wrong? I know teens are notoriously inattentive, but she &/or the mother really shoulda been more on the ball.
CVS was indeed negligent in giving her the wrong bottle of medication but. So. Was. The. Girl. Never take any medication without checking the name and contents before leaving the pharmacy!! I’ve been given someone else’s prescription in the past. Especially with as overworked as pharmacy employees are these days, accidents can and do happen! The final responsibility is our own!!
Oh yeah,
CVS would have apologized in a hurry, because this is a serious, life-threatening and actionable error. They were careless and put her health and her life at risk.
I would hold them accountable. At the very least, file a complaint with the College and CVS head office.
I wouldn’t let them off easy on this one.