Hospital apologises, changes procedures after mixing up patient’s prescription

[rooster59]

Hospital apologises, changes procedures after mixing up patient’s prescription

By Manit Sanabboon 
The Nation

 

 

Prachin Buri’s Kabin Buri Hospital admitted to have dispensed the wrong medicine to a patient and promised to adjust its system to have two pharmacists, said hospital director Dr Chokchai Manadee via a phone interview on Friday.

 

In future, one pharmacist would dispense the medicines and another would recheck them before handing them out to patients.

 

Chockchai was responding to a Thai social media user’s post on Thursday afternoon claiming that her mother – suffering from a sore throat and coughing – was given a rash-soothing lotion, which she duly sipped as instructed. The mother noticed a strange taste and odour compared to her usual cough syrup and found out from the label that it was not the correct medicine.

 

 

The post garnered public criticism, 4,200 “likes” and was shared by 5,100 people.

 

“In this case, the doctor prescribed the correct medicine but the mix-up during dispensing was because the two medicines – one is a cough syrup and the other is a rash-soothing lotion – had similar packaging,” Chokchai said. 

 

The patient’s relative had already switched to the correct medicine and received an apology by the pharmacist responsible for the mix-up, said Chokchai.

 

The patient was not harmed and the hospital had already reported the error to the Public Health Ministry, he added.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30339070

 

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-02-17

[Darcula]

3 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

The patient was not harmed and the hospital had already reported the error to the Public Health Ministry, he added.

 

Yes, but what about the other patient who got the cough syrup instead? Was it Somchai, the tour bus driver who dozed off while driving after applying cough syrup on his itchy arse?

 

[YetAnother]

15 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

had similar packaging,

huh ? that is how they dispense medicines ? bet they had prior screwups unreported

[lopburi3]

12 minutes ago, Darcula said:

 

Yes, but what about the other patient who got the cough syrup instead? Was it Somchai, the tour bus driver who dozed off while driving after applying cough syrup on his itchy arse?

 

This had nothing to do with switched medications with another patient - just the wrong medication because of an error and that they did not use a double check system like most places (which may or may not have caught the error as the packaging is too close to being the same).

[Darcula]

3 minutes ago, lopburi3 said:

This had nothing to do with switched medications with another patient - just the wrong medication because of an error and that they did not use a double check system like most places (which may or may not have caught the error as the packaging is too close to being the same).

 

My bad. The bus crash was just normal brake failure, then.

 

[sanemax]

A similar thing happened to me in a CM hospital .

I went there with an eye infection ans saw a Doctor and he prescribed me two different medicines .

One to be taken twice a day and the other to be taken four times a day .

I took the prescription to the hospital pharmacy and bought the two different medicines , anti-biotics and something else and I noticed on the label that they both said to be taken twice a day.

    I went back to the Doctor and asked him which one needed to be taken four times a day , as the both labels state twice a day .

   He looked at the medicine and asked me where I got them from , I told him from the Hospital pharmacy .

  He told me that it was the wrong medicine and the medicine that I had would make the infection worse .

   We went to the Hospital pharmacy to get the right medicine .

The Pharmacist said that he didnt have the correct medicine and so gave me something else , a different medicine .  

   I then went to an eye specialist and he told me that I had a serious eye infection, which if left untreated I could loose my eye .

   If I hadnt noticed the wrong medicine at the hospital , I could be have been left blind in one eye.

 

[wavemanwww]

I want to be a patient at this hospital Ensuring over prescribed morphine and Valium at no extra charge!

[bluesofa]

43 minutes ago, wavemanwww said:

I want to be a patient at this hospital Ensuring over prescribed morphine and Valium at no extra charge!

You could end up having a hard time and feeling pretty relaxed about it simultaneously if they gave you Morphine and Viagra together.

[Bangkok Barry]

9 hours ago, sanemax said:

A similar thing happened to me in a CM hospital .

I went there with an eye infection ans saw a Doctor and he prescribed me two different medicines .

One to be taken twice a day and the other to be taken four times a day .

I took the prescription to the hospital pharmacy and bought the two different medicines , anti-biotics and something else and I noticed on the label that they both said to be taken twice a day.

    I went back to the Doctor and asked him which one needed to be taken four times a day , as the both labels state twice a day .

   He looked at the medicine and asked me where I got them from , I told him from the Hospital pharmacy .

  He told me that it was the wrong medicine and the medicine that I had would make the infection worse .

   We went to the Hospital pharmacy to get the right medicine .

The Pharmacist said that he didnt have the correct medicine and so gave me something else , a different medicine .  

   I then went to an eye specialist and he told me that I had a serious eye infection, which if left untreated I could loose my eye .

   If I hadnt noticed the wrong medicine at the hospital , I could be have been left blind in one eye.

 

You play Russian Roulette with hospitals here. I was diagnosed with bronchitis but after taking the medication and not getting any better after a few days it dawned on me that I had none of the symptoms of bronchitis. I was taken to another hospital who said I had severe food poisoning and would have been dead in two days. Not finished yet - this was a private hospital, but one day there was no water as the pump broke and there was no back-up and staff had to carry buckets of water up to my room (food poisoning can get messy). Still not finished - one day my drip stopped and I pressed the emergency button to call a nurse. No response, and when I hobbled down the corridor to find someone they discovered the alarm bell didn't work. They fixed it and two hours later it didn't work again. Someone could die in that room because of an emergency. Sometimes care can be very good, but sometimes the Thai way can kill you.

[Sydebolle]

At the end of the day it remains within the sphere of competence (to be polite) of the individual patient to READ what the stuff is all about.
Also important would be that the pharmacist handing out the medicine is to read from the packaging of the medicine to the customer, what, how, when, how often and how much is to be taken. 

The mark-up on medicine by hospitals is staggering; for half the price (literally) you can get medicine at Fascino's four outlets in Pattaya - instead of sinking your funds at Bangkok Pattaya hospital. On top of it it is MUCH faster and, unlike Mom-and-Pop-pharmacies those Fascino branches (there are other such chains) are - by law - manned by pharmacists which check/read what the staff is putting together. 

So get your prescription filled elsewhere where the core business is selling medicine as they cannot afford such hiccups ............ 

[lamyai3]

27 minutes ago, Sydebolle said:

At the end of the day it remains within the sphere of competence (to be polite) of the individual patient to READ what the stuff is all about.
Also important would be that the pharmacist handing out the medicine is to read from the packaging of the medicine to the customer, what, how, when, how often and how much is to be taken

Quite true. Even though the medicine doesn't normally get mixed up, dosage recommendation given here often does, in excess of international standards. Contraindications are probably ignored too.