Blind man died after Boots gave him wrong drugs
A BLIND pensioner died after a Boots pharmacy gave him another patient’s prescription drugs, an inquest heard yesterday.
Former RAF serviceman Douglas Lamond, 86, was sent weekly medicine boxes, which were assembled in a local branch.
The pills, which were used for ailments including type 2 diabetes, heart problems and glaucoma, were separated into different plastic compartments to take on differ- ent days. But a pharmacist and dispenser breached the high street chain’s standard procedures by opening a sealed box to add pills and failing to check the contents.
The box grandfather Mr Lamond received had a delivery label with his name on the outside. But the container inside, which had seven plastic compartments, one for each day of the week, was meant to go to another patient – who had a surname which began with the same three letters as Mr Lamond’s. The pills were sent to Mr Lamond’s home in Felixstowe, Suffolk, on May 10, 2012, and he died at Ipswich Hospital on May 12 after being taken there by ambulance.
The pills he received by mistake are understood to have included omeprazole, which is used for acid reflux and ulcers, and gabapentin, which treats seizures.
Detective Superintendent Andrew Smith told the inquest: ‘ He told paramedics he had been short of breath for the last three days and had chest pain.’
Mr Smith said Mr Lamond, a widower, who lived alone, was ‘ almost totally reliant’ on health professionals preparing his daily pills for him because of his eyesight. It was ‘ very likely’ that the error had ‘hastened his death’, he added.
When interviewed later by police, two members of staff at a Boots branch in Felixstowe admitted failings, Mr Smith told the inquest in Ipswich.
Dispenser Susan Hazelwood slit open a compartment of a previously assembled medicine box to add pills and sealed it with sticky tape.
She described being busy on the day when Mr Lamond asked for four extra tablets of
‘She did not check the name’
amitriptyline, which is used for a range of conditions including arthritis, chronic headaches and depression.
‘She did not check the existing box to check it was in the name of Douglas Lamond,’ Mr Smith said.
Pharmacist Mihaela Seceleanu later checked the box for the additional pills but failed to take note of those that had been placed in it earlier.
She described adding pills to an existing box and sealing it with tape as being ‘common practice within Boots’, although it was not standard procedure. Seceleanu was later cautioned under the Medicines Act 1968 for supplying a product that was not of the nature demanded by the purchaser.
The inquest continues.