ProNurse

Hello,

I was hoping that someone would be able to give me some advice, it is desperatly needed.

Last Wednesday my 3 year son was taken into hospital to have his tonsils and adnoids removed and something along the line happened and he developed a large cluster of mouth ulcers so when he was discharged they gave me a prescription for some zovirax to help with ulcers. I took the prescription to a local pharmacy and they didn't have it in stock so i had to go a little further afield to a supermarket pharmacy. When i got there they were very busy and they asked me to return in 45mins, when i got there, they gave me the bag and i left. Whilst in the car i had a quick look at the bottle to see how regulary he needed it, it said 13.3mls five times a day. The doseage seemed a bit weird but i didn't think much of it. When i got home i drew up the 3.3mls to give to him whilst my mum went to find me a 10ml syringe. It was after i gave him the 3,3mls that i noticed a discrepcy. The pharmacy printed label said Zovirax but the box and the manufactors label said Zantac. Obviously i realised that these two medications were intially different so i left him the care of my mum whilst i went back to the pharmacy. On route my mum phoned me to say that my son was vomitting. When i got to the pharmacy i insisted on talking to the pharmacist about this mistake and she told me that she was busy, tired and over-worked and thats why the mistake was made before crying hysterically. The store manager came over in the commotion and the mistake was explained to him. He then told me that he was going to refer it to the Pharmacutical operational manager for an investiagtion. That evening i recieved 3 phone calls from the store manager calling to tell me that the pharmacist was very upset and crying still. The pharmacy operations manager also called me to assure me that a full investiagtion would take place. Luckily the vomiting subsided but i was so concerned that i sought the advice of a friend that works as a dispensing assistant and she consulted the BNF that stated the max childrens daily doseage was 150mgs and just one of my sons doseages equaled  200mgs, his daily doseage added up to 1000mgs, the adult max daily dosegae is 600mgs. The effects of overdose is low blood pressure (his BP was already low due to his op the day before) and  renal failure to name just a few.

The investigation took place yesterday and the pharmacy operations manager phoned me yesterday afternoon to tell me that they had been to the pharmacy, filled in the relevent forms, moved a few bottles of medicine and confirmed that correct dispensing protacol was followed and they have decided that they will take no further action. I am not happy with that fact they feel that an event this serious requires no further action and in effect has been swept under the carpet. I deem this a serious incident, not only did she dispense the wrong medication to my son but she also got the dose wrong at almost double the adult doseage.

My question is does anyone know what my next step is? Is my battle fruitless?

Thanks in advance

I believe the Pharmacist's reaction was more to do with the fact she feared the repercussions of the incident rather than regret that the incident could have had serious consquences,