A woman in Las Vegas who reportedly underwent in vitro fertilization lost her unborn children after a pharmacy accidentally gave her abortion pills.
According to the New York Post, Timika Thomas, a mother of four, was given misoprostol, one of the drugs used in a chemical abortion, instead of “doctor-prescribed vaginal suppositories” in 2019. When she took the drug, she began cramping.
“I started cramping really bad,” Thomas reportedly said. “It was extreme. It was painful.”
Thomas took two of the pills before reading the bottle the drugs came in.
“The first thing I read is it’s used for abortions,” she said. “They just killed my baby … Both my babies, because I transferred two embryos.”
Pharmacy accidentally gives abortion pills to patient undergoing IVF: ‘They just killed my babies’ https://t.co/gYIXAaSnJc pic.twitter.com/gNrrYSbVne
— New York Post (@nypost) October 5, 2023
Nevada-based outlet KLAS reported that two technicians and two pharmacists made “a series of errors” that led to Thomas being given the wrong medication (via 8 News Now):
Among the series of mistakes, those documents say one technician – incorrectly believing she knew the generic name for the brand prescribed by the doctor – entered the wrong name into the prescription. One pharmacist did not catch the error, and another pharmacist failed to counsel Thomas when she came to pick up her medication.
“It [the error] would have been caught because then they would have had to have the medicine in their hand,” Thomas said. “And they would have said, ‘Oh, this is Misoprostol or Cytotek, have you taken this before?’ And I would have said ‘no.’ ”
Thomas lodged a complaint with the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy, which met in September. After she gave heartbreaking testimony about her horrifying experience, the two pharmacists were fined and had their licenses suspended provisionally. If both pharmacists avoid disciplinary action over the next 12 months, pay fines and take continuing education credits, their licenses will be reinstated, according to pharmacy board documents.
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The pharmacy board fined CVS the maximum amount allowed by statute — $10,000.00 – for its vicarious liability of the pharmacists’ errors.
In a statement, CVS said: “We’ve apologized to our patient for the prescription incident that occurred in 2019 and have cooperated with the Nevada Board of Pharmacy in this matter.”
“The health and well-being of our patients is our number one priority and we have comprehensive policies and procedures in place to support prescription safety,” the statement continued. “Prescription errors are very rare, but if one does occur, we take steps to learn from it in order to continuously improve quality and patient safety.”
Previously, Thomas was having trouble getting pregnant. She previously had two ectopic pregnancies that led to her having her fallopian tubes removed. Thomas and her husband then decided to pay for IVF.
In a hearing, one of the pharmacists described it as a “human error,” adding that she felt “so sorry.”
“All I got was a sorry,” Thomas told 8 News Now. “It will never be good enough.”