‘It sounds like a tranquilizer’: Mother says CVS gave her son the wrong prescription

BOSSIER CITY, La. (KSLA/Gray News) - A Louisiana mother is sharing her family’s story about a prescription mix-up that happened at an area CVS pharmacy.

Tarah Thomas says she wants everyone to make sure they double-check their new medicines after her 13-year-old son was given the wrong prescription.

“He was supposed to have cough medicine and an antibiotic,” she said.

However, Thomas says her husband noticed something didn’t seem right when giving their son the medicine they had picked from CVS.

“He said, ‘Look at this, it sounds like a tranquilizer,” Thomas said, referring to the medicine given for night use. “It said take for 90 days at night.”

It was at this point the family said they realized they were given the wrong prescriptions.

KSLA reports the medication Thomas’ 13-year-old was issued was actually for a 30-year-old man who suffers from high blood pressure and depression. The two happened to have similar first names, the same last name, and the same birth month and day. However, their addresses were different.

“It actually hit me the address was wrong before I realized the name was wrong,” Thomas said.

The mother reported the mix-up to CVS’s corporate office and filed a report with the Louisiana Board of Pharmacy.

CVS issued a statement regarding the situation:

“We apologized to Ms. Thomas when she notified us that her son received the wrong prescription. We encouraged her to consult her child’s provider before giving him any additional medications and are looking into how this happened to help prevent a similar error in the future. 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 accuracy. Prescription errors are a rare occurrence, but if one does happen, we use what we learn from it to continuously improve quality and patient safety.”

Thomas said she hopes other families don’t have to experience the same thing.

“I would hope the pharmacy would do something to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Thomas said. “It seems like that they are understaffed.”

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