Medicine mix-up over names led to pensioner’s death
A HEALTHY 86-year-old died from a brain injury after she was given medication i ntended f or a woman with a similar name, an inquiry heard yesterday.
Although an octogenarian, Margaret Forrest had still been fit enough to go backpacking on the Afghanistan border and in Australia.
The widow from Kingussie in Inverness-shire had been planning to attend her grandson’s wedding in the South of England when she was mistakenly given tablets for a diabetic woman, Florence Frost, by her local Boots pharmacy.
Mrs Forrest was found unconscious in her flat in the High Street above the family-run gift shop by her 65-year- old son Billy on November 12, 2013. She died two days later without regaining consciousness.
A Fatal Accident Inquiry ( FAI) at Inverness Sheriff Court was told yesterday that Mrs Forrest had wrongly been given gliclazide, which is used to treat diabetics. It induced a hypo-glycaemic brain injury and other complications, causing her death.
Sheriff Margaret Neilson heard that when Mrs Forrest was admitted to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, medical staff thought she was Mrs Frost as paramedics had handed over a box of medication with Mrs Frost’s name on it.
It was only when Billy Forrest’s partner Ellie, a mental health nurse at the hospital, made inquiries that the truth was revealed.
Fiscal depute Alasdair Macdonald, leading the evidence in the inquiry, told Sheriff Neilson the Crown did not intend to prosecute pharmacy manager Nicola Ferguson or her staff.
Mrs Forrest’s other son, Steven, who is representing the family, also gave the court assurances that the family would not seek a private pros- ecution against Miss Ferguson or staff members.
Miss Ferguson elected not to give evidence at the FAI, although her police statement was read out. She said to Detective Sergeant Alan Ross: ‘I was told Mrs Frost’s medication was in Mrs Forrest’s possession at Raigmore Hospital. She would have had to collect it from the pharmacy. I have no knowledge how this happened.
‘I can confirm Mrs Forrest’s medication was kept next to Mrs Frost’s. We keep it on shelves in alphabetical order.’
But police photographs showed not all the medication on that particular shelf was in alphabetical order.
Billy Forrest told the FAI his mother kept ‘ pretty good health and was still sharp’.
He said: ‘Despite her age, she had been backpacking to the Afghanistan border and in Australia for three months. She was very independent, so I wouldn’t see her every day. She took medication for high blood pressure but there was nothing that concerned me.
‘I hadn’t seen her the weekend before and went upstairs to check on her. I found her lying on the floor unconscious.
‘I phoned an ambulance and the paramedics came and wanted her medication. I found a box in her bedroom with some compartments open. It wasn’t until later I discovered it had Mrs Frost’s name on it.
‘We just hope this inquiry will make sure this does not happen again.’
The FAI continues.
‘I found her unconscious’