Winnipeg girl overdoses after medication error by pharmacy, parents say

The parents of a 10-year-old girl said a mistake from a pharmacy caused their daughter to overdose on her medication. CTV’s Jeff Keele reports.

A 10-year-old Winnipeg girl was rushed to emergency after a local pharmacy gave her the wrong dosage of a medication she routinely takes.

Andrea Thidrickson and Kevin Barkley say their daughter was rushed to hospital after taking medication that was much higher than the dosage her doctor prescribed.

“We already know that the dosage received should have never been given to a child,” Barkley told CTV News.

They say it happened while their daughter was staying with a family friend last week. She was given a pill from her bottle of medication, one that she routinely takes.

The friend noticed the girl was not her normal, energetic self afterwards.

“She was basically zonked out for the entire day, lethargic,” Barkley recalled.

The next morning their daughter took a second pill, her parents say, but this time she became very ill and started throwing up.

“The friend sent me a picture. I did not recognize the pill,” Thidrickson said.

That’s because the pill the pharmacy dispensed was 20 milligrams, the parents say, which is ten times the two-milligram dose prescribed by their daughter’s doctor.

“That was the panic, instant panic. My heart just dropped,” Thidrickson said.

They called poison control and the girl’s pediatrician and were told to go to the children’s emergency department.

The diagnosis from the hospital report shared with CTV News was an unintentional overdose because “she was dispensed 20 milligram tablets ten times greater than her prescribed dose of two milligrams.”

Loblaw launching investigation into incident

The parents say the incorrect dose came from the Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacy at Dominion Centre.

Shoppers parent company Loblaw said in a statement to CTV News it takes this very seriously and has launched an investigation with its pharmacy incident team.

" We are in contact with the associate owner of this location and are in the process of contacting the family,” the statement said.

The parents say they did receive an apology from the pharmacy owner, but they want a review to prevent this from happening again.

“It’s not a little mistake. Something bigger needs to happen,” Thidrickson said.

According to the College of Pharmacists of Manitoba, pharmacies are required to report medication mistakes and put a plan in place to prevent future errors.

A complaint can also be filed through the college if a patient is not satisfied with the response from a pharmacy over a medication error.

Carolyn Hoffman with the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada (ISMP) said 750 million prescriptions are dispensed in Canada every year.

“The actual reported medication error is low for that volume. Unfortunately, a small number do result in harm,” she said.

In this case, the girl fully recovered, but her parents worry this could have been worse.

“Even the emergency room doctor had said had this been a few more days, it would have been a very different story for the outcome,” Thidrickson said.