Three Reasons to Consider a Dallas Drug Injury Lawsuit

When you pick up your prescription from your Dallas Walgreens or CVS, you assume that you are getting just what the doctor ordered. Yet every year, more than one million Americans are injured because of preventable medication errors.
There are many types of pharmacy mistakes, but one of the most common is providing the wrong drug. Seventy percent of medication errors involve a patient taking a drug that was not the prescribed medication.
Medication and prescription errors can result in serious events such as poisoning, toxicity, overdose, and wrongful death.

Examples of wrong medication errors include:

• Pharmacy gives a drug that sounds like the prescribed medication, for example Celebrex (an arthritis drug) and Cerebyx (an anticonvulsant).
• Pharmacy fills the prescription with a drug that looks like the prescribed drug, for example filling a prescription for Simvastatin (gebneric Zocor, a cholesterol drug) with Sertraline Hydrochloride (generic Zoloft, an antidepressant).
• A patient is given another patient's prescription.
• The patient’s prescription is labeled with the correct name, but the wrong drug is inside.
• Providing the wrong dose of a drug.
• Pharmacy fails to identify potentially dangerous drug interactions when filling multiple prescriptions.
• Pharmacy fails to identify drug allergies.
• Pharmacy fails to double-check with doctors when there are questions about prescriptions.
• The wrong drug is prescribed.

There are many reasons why medication errors occur in Dallas pharmacies. These include:

• The prescription is illegible or difficult to read.
• A mistake is made in filling the prescription.
• The pharmacy is understaffed.
• The pharmacy staff is overworked or fatigued from too much overtime work.
• Untrained personnel may be allowed to work in the pharmacy.
• The pharmacy staff may not have been adequately trained.
• The pharmacist does not properly supervise pharmacy technicians.
• There is inadequate communication between pharmacy staff and prescribing doctor.
• There is poor patient counseling, including not asking a patient about other drugs used or drug allergies.
• Pharmacy staff may have been reduced for cost-savings.

Anyone hurt by a medication error in Texas has the right to file a Dallas drug error lawsuit. Suing the pharmacy that provided the wrong medication serves several purposes.

• The victim gets accountability for his injuries.
• The victim receives monetary compensation for medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and any other damages related to the medication mistake injury.
• The pharmacy becomes aware of the mistake that was made. The pharmacy must then try to prevent similar injuries in the future.

If you have suffered an injury caused by a medication error, please order a free copy of Dallas drug injury lawyer Jeff Rasansky's book, The Epidemic of Medical Mistakes & Understanding Your Rights. To schedule an appointment to discuss your Texas medication error claim, contact Rasansky Law Firm at (214) 651-6100.