Pharmacy Accidentally Gives Abortion Pill to Woman Undergoing IVF: ‘That Mistake Took Something from Me’
A Las Vegas woman undergoing IVF to expand her family was mistakenly given the abortion medication — not fertility medication — by her local pharmacy, terminating her pregnancy in its early stages.
The mom of 4 had been undergoing in vitro fertilization, a lengthy process in which fertilized embryos are implanted in the uterus to lead to a successful pregnancy, according to the Mayo Clinic. She and her husband had turned to IVF after having her Fallopian tubes removed, and they had paid for the expensive procedure out-of-pocket.
<PERSON> had just had two embryos transferred when she went to pick up medication to help her body “think it's pregnant.”
But pharmacy technicians at her North Las Vegas CVS gave her Misoprostol instead, which is used for “medication abortion,” according to the National Institute of Health.
<PERSON> brought a complaint to the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy, which, according to board documents, found that the pharmacy made a series of errors: When no one could read <PERSON>’ doctor’s handwriting on the prescription, that technicians guessed and gave her Misoprostol — instead of calling the doctor, per 8 News Now.
Then, when dispensing the medicine, <PERSON> said pharmacist didn't review with her what to expect with Misoprostol — which would have alerted them that the wrong medication had been dispensed. Reviewing the medication is protocol according to a report in Pharmacy Times, the Pharmacy the trade news journal for pharmacists, which says, “Pharmacists will counsel patients on how to take the misoprostol and what to expect with this medication.”
“It [the error] would have been caught because then they would have had to have the medicine in their hand,” <PERSON> said. 360
“And they would have said, ‘Oh, this is Misoprostol or [its brand name] Cytotec, have you taken this before?’ And I would have said ‘No.’ ”
During the hearing before the pharmacy board, one of the pharmacists pointed to cutbacks by CVS, which left them overwhelmed.
"You cannot expect one pharmacist to be doing drop-off, pickup, verifying prescriptions, calling providers, calling patients," she said, adding that pharmacists also administer vaccines.
“I understand that people make mistakes,” <PERSON> said at the hearing. “But that mistake took something from me.”
The pharmacy did not lose its license, but was fined $10,000 8 News Now reports, adding that since this happened in 2019, Thomas is unable to sue the pharmacy, as the statute of limitations has expired.
In a statement, CVS said, “We’ve apologized to our patient for the prescription incident that occurred in 2019 and have cooperated with the Nevada Board of Pharmacy in this matter. The health and well-being of our patients is our number one priority and we have comprehensive policies and procedures in place to support prescription safety. Prescription errors are very rare, but if one does occur, we take steps to learn from it in order to continuously improve quality and patient safety.”
And as <PERSON> points out, “All I got was a sorry.”
“It will never be good enough.” 339