Woman's IVF treatment postponed after pharmacist's error

The pharmacist had breached the code of patients' rights. Photo / Thinkstock

A woman's fertility procedure had to be abandoned because she was taking the wrong medication, owing to a mistake by a pharmacist.

Deputy Health and Disability Commissioner Theo Baker found the pharmacist had breached the code of patients' rights.

The woman was scheduled to have embryos transferred into her uterus as part of in-vitro fertilisation treatment. In preparation she was prescribed a medication called oestradiol valerate.

The prescription was faxed to a pharmacy, where a pharmacist entered the first four letters, "oest", into the pharmacy computer system to produce a label.

The medication name "oestriol" came up on the screen and the pharmacist, in error, selected this and dispensed it to the woman.

"It was later discovered that she had been dispensed an incorrect form of oestrogen," the commissioner's office said this afternoon when making Ms Baker's report public. "As a result of taking the wrong medication, the woman's embryo transfer cycle had to be abandoned."

The woman later went back to the pharmacy to return the oestriol and to pick up the correct medication. She spoke to another pharmacist at the shop who apologised and said a computer error had occurred.

Ms Baker said that by failing to check the dispensed medication against the prescription, the first pharmacist had failed to comply with the profession's standards.

This pharmacist wrote a letter of apology to the woman after she had complained.