Medication Errors
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Medication Errors
Medication Errors 
When your health care provider administers or prescribes medication and your pharmacist dispenses the medicine they have a duty to take proper care that the patient receives the correct dosage and type of medication. Even prescription drugs can have a detrimental effect on a patient’s health. In some cases a doctor or pharmacist’s negligence can lead to medication errors and the patient may suffer injury and damages as a result of such medical negligence.
Who is responsible?
Anyone who is involved with prescribing, administering and dispensing medication can be held liable for medication errors. Your doctor, nurses, the hospital, the pharmacy in the hospital and your private pharmacy can all be held liable if you suffer injury as a result of their negligence. The pharmaceutical manufacturer can also be held liable for negligence, but that leads to a different type of lawsuit.
Types of errors:
Negligence leading to medication errors can occur in many different ways.
- Your healthcare practitioner carelessly prescribed or administered the wrong medication.
- She/he prescribed the correct medication, but the wrong dosage. A typing error on the label can lead to a patient taking the wrong dosage.
- Your doctor failed to consider your medical history and prescription drug use before prescribing more medication.
- Your doctor might carelessly prescribe a drug that interacts negatively with other medication that you are taking.
- Your doctor failed to warn you of all the possible side effects and risks involved in taking the medication.
The effect of medication error can be mild, but it could also be fatal. Not every error or complication entitles you to a claim for damages. If you suffered injury as a direct result of the medication error you may succeed with a medical malpractice lawsuit.
Do you have a claim?
To succeed with a claim for medication error, you need to prove that:
- Your health care provider had an obligation to you as the patient, to act with a duty of care and be aware of your allergies or other negative interactions between different prescribed medications.
- You need to establish that he/she failed to perform this duty to the required standard of care, and that his/her failure resulted in further illness or injury to you.
If your doctor for example failed to ask about your medical history, allergies or other medication that you are using, it amounts to a breach of his/her duty of care. If the breach of duty resulted directly in your injury and the injury caused financial or emotional damage to you, you may succeed in your medical malpractice lawsuit.
What can you claim?
You may claim compensation for financial losses, including additional medical bills or lost wages. You may also claim compensation for non-financial damages such as pain and suffering.
Seek legal advice
If you want to claim compensation from your medical practitioner for medication error, contact our lawyers. We can assist you to determine the cause of your medication error, we can evaluate your case and provide assistance to claim damages for the injury you suffered as a result of the medical negligence. Our law firm has years of experience in medical malpractice lawsuits.