Medical News

(CBS 11 / TXA 21) You're in pain and you need a prescription filled, so you take it to your neighborhood pharmacy and assume you're going to leave with the right medication. It's something we've all done, but CBS 11 Investigator Ginger Allen found serious mistakes being made at some very popular local pharmacies.
 
A trip to a popular local pharmacy only made conditions worse for Richard Behney of Tarrant County. Richard was having back pain, and went to the doctor. He left with a prescription and headed to the Wal-Mart pharmacy on McCart Avenue in Fort Worth. "I loved the idea of going to Wal-Mart and getting a $4 prescription filled," Richard said.

But, shortly after beginning the medication, Richard noticed he wasn't getting any better. "I had taken 29 tablets before one night I just went in and picked up the bottle and looked at it, and said whoa, this isn't me. Nothing here is me," he added.

Richard's doctor prescribed Meloxicam, an anti-inflammatory medication and instructed him to take it once a day. But he ended up with a prescription for Hydralazine, which is a blood pressure medication. The instructions for that prescription said to take it twice a day.

When Richard looked closer he noticed the prescription was actually for a woman named Christina. Richard told CBS 11 News, "The drug is different, the doctor is different, everything. The medication is different."

As a result of taking the wrong medication, Richard suffered a severe allergic reaction. His legs and arms began to break out. His feet started to swell and a surgical scar began to open. "My life has really been upside down. I've just gone from one bad thing into another thing," he said.

Richard filed a complaint with the Texas State Board of Pharmacy. In August, the agency sent him a letter, saying it had opened a case. The agency's executive director, Gay Dodson says those kinds of mistakes are dangerous. According to Dodson, "If you give them the wrong drug, at the wrong strength and if it's a drug that has an immediate action, there can be very bad results."

The state investigation into what happened at the Wal-Mart on McCart Avenue is still ongoing. Wal-Mart told CBS 11 News, "Mistakes are rare, but even one is too many."

CBS 11 News has discovered this is far from the first potentially dangerous mistake at a local pharmacy in recent years.

In May, 2006 the pharmacy board fined a different Wal-Mart. It suspended the license of the Wal-Mart pharmacy on I-30 in Garland after a pharmacist dispensed the wrong dosage of medication to a five-month-old infant.

A similar punishment was handed down in February, 2006 to the CVS pharmacy on Hedgecoxe Road in Plano. There, a pharmacist dispensed the wrong medication to a seven-month-old.

The Walgreen's in the 11000-block of East Northwest Highway in Dallas was fined and its license suspended in May of 2006, after a pharmacist made multiple mistakes.

Dodson has advice for consumers. She says, "If the drug is a different color, if it's a different shape, if something looks wrong or it's not what the doctor told you what you were getting, stop and ask the pharmacist. Ask them to check and double check."

Richard Behney wished he had taken a closer look at the prescription he was handed. He's still suffering the lingering effects of taking the wrong medication.

Walgreen's says the pharmacist in question at the East Northwest Highway location is no longer employed with the company.

Click here to read the full statements released from Walgreen's, CVS and Wal-Mart.

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