When you have a medical condition, there’s a team of professionals you entrust with your health — physicians, nurses, and pharmacists, to name a few. You have the confidence that they know what they’re doing to best provide treatment for your ailment, and you expect them to meet the most stringent standard of care. After all, they have people’s lives in their hands. Any mistake could have serious consequences — sometimes irreparable ones. So, what do you do if you find out that due to an oversight, you suffer damages? Specifically, what type of actions — or failure to act — from a pharmacist constitutes negligence in Texas?
What are a pharmacist’s legal responsibilities?
Chapter 291 of the Texas Administrative Code establishes the legal responsibilities of pharmacists in the Lone Star State. These include:
- Educating and training pharmacy technicians
- Ensuring the appropriate procurement of prescription medications
- Properly disposing of and distributing pharmaceuticals
- Properly storing all medications and materials
- Maintaining records of all transactions for accountability purposes and ensuring compliance with state and federal laws
- Establishing controls to prevent the theft or diversion of prescription drugs or patient records
- Legally operating the pharmacy — including meeting all inspections and requirements by state and federal laws
- Consulting with the owner regarding adherence to policies and procedures for safety, security and access, patient confidentiality, prevention of unauthorized access, and malfunction
- Inspecting medications at least monthly for the expiration date, misbranding, and physical security
- Overseeing personnel access to automated dispensing systems
- Ensuring the dispensing system is stocked
In addition, Chapter 74 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code — which regulates medical liability claims — includes pharmacists under the definition of healthcare providers. This means that any instance where a pharmacist deviates from the accepted standards of healthcare safety (and such deviation proximately results in injury or death), you have a medical negligence claim.
What’s pharmacy negligence?
Negligence occurs when any person breaches their duty of care — and such a breach causes you or any other person to suffer damages. A pharmacist’s duties are outlined in the Texas Administrative Code as listed above. Breaching any of those duties would be considered pharmacy negligence. Some examples of pharmacy negligence include:
- Filling a prescription with the incorrect medication
- Filling a prescription with the wrong dosage
- Providing the wrong instructions about medication consumption
- Providing expired medication
- Providing a prescription that was intended for someone else
Any of these instances could result in harm to a patient, such as worsening an existing medical condition, developing a new medical condition, poisoning — and in a worst-case scenario — death.
Compensation for Pharmacy Negligence
Any time you suffer damages from someone else’s negligence, you’re entitled to file a claim to recover for your losses. This includes additional medical bills incurred, lost wages, loss of future earnings, hospitalization costs, cost of future medical care, household expenses if things had to be modified to accommodate you due to injury, and costs associated with modified plans. In a nutshell, any monetary expenses that are a result of the pharmacist’s negligence can be compensated. These are known as special damages.
In addition, you can file claims for general damages. These include harm that cannot be quantified by a specific monetary amount — such as pain and suffering, mental anguish, and/or loss of consortium. If the pharmacist’s negligence resulted in wrongful death, you can also receive compensation for funeral and burial expenses, as well as for the loss of the deceased person’s financial contribution to your household.
Civil Litigation Attorneys in Texas
If you believe you may be a victim of pharmacy negligence and need to know how to move forward, the experienced attorneys at The Weycer Law Firm can help.
Discuss your case for FREE today by contacting us online or by calling (713) 668-4545.
Note: This blog is for informational purposes only and does not create an attorney/client relationship.