Prescription Errors & Your Case For Medical Negligence

Just because you are unhappy with your doctor or nurses’ treatment doesn’t mean you automatically have a medical negligence claim.   A quick refresher on medical negligence will tell you that in order to have a successful claim, your doctor or nurse must have been negligent in a way that their ‘duty of care’ fell below the standard expected of them. That is, they acted in a manner that other doctor’s would not have acted in.

However, one common patient complaint is prescription errors. Typically, prescription errors can lead to medical negligence issues. If you or a loved one has been a victim of a prescription error, contact your solicitor today.

Most Common Types of Prescription Errors:

A)  Right Drug, Wrong Patient

Nothing spells negligence louder than prescribing a drug to the wrong patient. Countless episodes of Greys Anatomy come to mind {sorry doctors, yes we are quoting greys anatomy!).  When doctors prescribe the right drug but end up giving it to the wrong patient, typically your doctor should admit to his/her wrongdoing and settle the matter quickly by offering you compensation for any injuries sustained. However, if he/she doesn’t, consider pursuing legal action.

B)   Wrong Drug, Right Patient

Another common prescription error is the case of a wrong drug being prescribed to the right patient. Usually, this could occur when the initial diagnosis itself was incorrect. In such cases, there could be two possible claims--one for misdiagnosis and the other for the wrong drug. Furthermore, any infections or injuries resulting from the wrong drug (god forbid an allergic reaction!) are compensable.

C)   Incorrect Dosage On Prescription

We finally reach the part of the story where we get the patient right, the drug right, but then we mess up the dosage. Instead of writing “2 times a day” on the prescription label, we write “3 times a day” and now our poor patient has an overdose of medicine being injected into their body. We all know what happens when people “OD”. We haven’t yet experienced such a case, but there could be a situation where someone becomes addicted to medication as a result of the over dosage and has a separate cause of action for such addiction.

D)  Equipment Discharges Wrong Dosage

And just to add fuel to the fire, your attention is requested to a case of equipment discharging the wrong dosage. The issue here is twofold: did the equipment malfunction and if yes, this could be potentially be a case of products liability or did the nurse or doctor operating the equipment screw up thereby releasing the wrong dosage. In either case, liability exists. Contact your attorney today.