It’s a scary thing when you realize you were given the wrong medicine. You worry about what is happening; you worry about what will happen as a result of having taken medication that wasn’t right. You worry about what will happen to your family if you aren’t there to do the things you do every day as a caretaker of your loved ones. You worry what your family will do without you, without the money you bring in as a wage earner. If you or a loved one has been the victim of a medication error, you have rights. Here, we discuss the things you could do that will hurt your claim against the pharmacy.
- Not keeping the bottle - Always save the medication bottle, and save the medication that came in the bottle. This is evidence in your claim. Also, keep any packaging or instructions that show the dose and usage instructions you were given at the pharmacy. The medicine is proof that the wrong medication was in the bottle. Even the residue from the medication could be important because a laboratory can test the bottle to see what was in it. ALWAYS save the bottle.
- Not seeking medical treatment - If you discover you’ve been given the wrong medicine, or if you feel ill after taking the medicine because of side effects or drug interactions or if you have a drug reaction, seek medical attention immediately. Reactions to medication errors can be life-threatening. Even if you fully recover after a day or two, your medical records from the emergency Room are important pieces of evidence. Seek medical treatment for your own safety and well-being, not simply because the medical records are evidence.
- Blaming Yourself - A pharmacist has a duty to patients to make sure their prescriptions are safe for them, and to make sure the doctor’s orders for use of the medicine are correctly printed on the label. The pharmacist knows chemicals and drugs. Unless you are in the medical profession and work with drugs as part of your job, how could you be expected to know that a particular medication was the wrong drug or that it was unsafe for you? Certain drugs are not available over the counter precisely because they require expert knowledge, training and experience for their proper use. You are perfectly justified in relying on the pharmacist to do his job correctly.
- Accepting a small sum or coupons to resolve your claim - The pharmacy that injured you has a whole set of insurance policies, and just as many lawyers on their defense team. If the insurance adjuster, or the manager of the store, or anyone else from the company that owns the pharmacy tries to smooth things over, and they offer you some token sum of money or a bunch of coupons, refuse them. These things always come with papers for you to sign that release them from any wrongdoing, and are written so that you can’t sue the pharmacy. Don’t talk to them, and don’t accept their overtures without legal representation. They have lots of lawyers on staff to protect them and their interests. You should have qualified legal representation also to protect your rights and your interests.
- Giving a recorded statement - Do not say a word to the pharmacy without a lawyer present to protect your rights. Recorded statements can and will be used to argue that you supposedly weren’t really injured by pharmacy malpractice and that you were the cause of the problem and not the pharmacist, or the hospital, or whoever the culprit is in your medication error claim.
- Thinking your claim is worthless because you recovered within a few days - It’s great that you recovered completely. This does not mean your claim is worthless. If you suffered from unnecessary symptoms, however temporary they may have been, you have a valid and potentially valuable claim if it was caused by a pharmacy error. Did you seek medical attention? Did you miss any work? What services did your family lose from you while you were recovering? How scared were you? Was your family also afraid something horrible might happen? Was your spouse denied the ability to sleep next to you for a few days? Were your marital relations affected by the injury from the medication error, even for a day? There are many other considerations in these cases, and they can be worth money if you have a valid claim.
- Assuming nothing can be done - You have rights. Those rights were violated when you were given the wrong medicine or the wrong dose. Something can always be done. Talk to a qualified medication error attorney. He or she can help you decide if you have a claim.
- Thinking you don’t have enough proof - Your lawyer will know exactly what needs to be done to prove your claim in court. He knows the law, he knows the elements to prove your claim and where and how to find the evidence. Talk to a lawyer. You’d be surprised how much proof you actually have access to in your pharmacy error claim.
- Not speaking to a pharmacy error attorney before talking to the pharmacy’s insurance company - We covered why you should never, ever do this without having legal representation on your side above, in numbers 4 and 5, but it certainly bears repeating. Don’t speak to anyone about your situation or your claim until you have a competent pharmacy error lawyer representing your interests, because the corporate lawyers and the insurance adjusters do not have your best interests in their minds, much less their hearts.
- Waiting too long before suing the pharmacy - Generally, you have two years and in many states one year to file a claim. Children may have longer to file or have filed on their behalf, a lawsuit against the pharmacy. A medication mistake lawyer will know whether the statute of limitations has run out on your claim. There is a statute of limitations for every civil claim like this one. Talk to a lawyer experienced in suing pharmacies as soon as you possibly can. Don’t wait, because the clock starts ticking on these cases quickly.
It can be hard to know what to do in these cases. Perhaps you’ve used the same pharmacy for years, so you feel as if you would be harming someone you know if you speak out. Perhaps you worry the pharmacist or the pharmacy techs will lose their jobs.
What did you lose when you were given the wrong medication? What did you have to worry about when you were sick from taking the wrong dose or the wrong medicine? Did you have to worry about losing your own job from being absent? Were you worried about paying your medical bills in addition to your mortgage, buying groceries, paying for electricity for your home? Were you worried about what your children would do without you while you were hospitalized? Are you still worried about what will happen to you and your family because your loved one was killed by a drug error? Who is looking out for your family? Who is protecting your rights? If you have been the victim of pharmacy malpractice, you need to talk to a competent pharmacy error attorney. Corporations will always look out for their own interests. You should look out for your own interests, and those of your family.
