Lifestyle

Controversial Pharmaceutical Drug Cases You Should Know About

Medical malpractices are a common phenomenon and are based on different actions such as the administration of wrong pharmaceutical drugs or the failure to act by health care professionals. The malpractice case boils down to the possibility of the caregiver’s conduct resulting in medical negligence.

There have been numerous cases over the years concerning the poor administration of drugs, and the issue has, for an extended period, been controversial. Here are some pharmaceutical drug case scenarios that you should be aware of and the actions that you should take during the unfortunate event.

IMAGE: PEXELS

Prescription Drug Cases

There are various types of prescription drug errors that currently take place in hospitals. The caregiver might administer the wrong medication to an ailing person, offer the wrong dosage for medication, prescribe drugs that cause allergic reactions to a patient, or fail to warn a patient about the side effects that come after taking the medication. Besides, another standard error that caregivers make involves the administration of mislabeled medication. In case such an unfortunate event happens to you or a close family member, you will need to consult legal experts, given that these legal experts will advise you on the process to take for compensation. For example, you might have been misdiagnosed with say, cancer, and your caregiver offered you Zantac. In such a case, it would be advisable to speak with an experienced pharmaceutical drug lawyer given that you might need compensation for permanent disability, wrongful death, loss of income, or the pain and suffering that you are currently undergoing.

Liable Parties In Pharmaceutical Drug Cases

Generally, everyone in the chain that runs from administration to the prescription of a given medical procedure could be held liable for drug errors. The parties include hospitals, nurses, doctors, the pharmaceutical manufacturer, pharmacists, and individual departments in the hospital. Here is an in-depth analysis of wrongful medication along with the liable parties.

1. Wrong Dosage Or Wrong Medication

Nurses and physicians are mainly held liable for administering or prescribing wrong drugs. The involved parties can make mistakes on the correct dosage to be distributed to a patient. Shockingly, it is easy to deliver the wrong dosage, and, in a situation where a caregiver transposes or misses a decimal point, then the patient could receive up to ten times above the medication.

Medications are meant to be administered through different means. In a case where a particular medication needs to be administered hypodermically, the health care provider might offer a shot in the wrong place. Drugs are meant to be injected on different parts of a patient’s body; some drugs need to be injected in the bloodstream while others should be injected in muscles.

There are cases where poor doctor’s penmanship that is commonly evidenced by the lousy handwriting leads to misinterpretation of the prescription by the pharmacist. In such a case, the doctor who wrote the prescription needs to put into account.

2. Poor Labeling Of Medication

In some cases, the medication might be mislabeled, and it could either happen before the drugs reach the pharmacy or when the drugs are at the pharmacy. In such a case, the patient ends up receiving the wrong dosage or medication, and the retailer or manufacturer could face a product liability case. In the case where the pharmacist mislabels medication, they should be served with a legitimate medical malpractice lawsuit.

3. Failure To Warn Patients On Prescription Side Effects

Parties that prescribed the drugs, be it the doctor, pharmacist, or nurse, need to be brought to book when they fail to notify a patient of the side effects associated with the drug. Besides the side effects, the medical fraternity should inform a patient on the foods that they need to avoid after taking the medication. For instance, medication for high blood pressure or high cholesterol might fail to work when a patient consumes grape juice.

4. Allergic Reactions

Pharmacists are mainly to blame for allergic reactions portrayed by patients. A pharmacist must enquire about patient allergies to prevent any harmful interaction between multiple medications in a patient’s body. It is always essential to have one caregiver who provides all prescriptions such that they have all your prescription details in hand. In the case of medical malpractice that results in an allergic reaction, it would be easier to locate the healthcare provider who offered the prescription.

The effect of pharmaceutical drug errors ranges from small cases to massive fatalities. In case you realize that you have been given the wrong medication, it would be advisable to contact your healthcare providers, and upon recovery, consider contacting a medical malpractice lawyer.

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