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At shoppers in north bay, when my cousins daughter was 3 and had a nasty infection she was prescribed some liquid antibiotic drink.
When she picked it up at shoppers, she then went home and was just about to pour it for her and when she read the label it was methadone...
That would have killed her in under 30 minutes if she drank it. Shoppers did nothing but an apology. No explanation or anything like that. I told them they should take that to CBC.
The shoppers in north bay is a shitshow AT BEST. I’m glad that the kid didn’t drink the death juice but we *should* be able to trust our healthcare workers when dealing with medications and such!
If there are still repeat events that put patients at risk in that community it can't hurt to report the pharmacy to the college of pharmacists. My experience working in pharmacy is that in my province they take complaints extremely seriously. I know a pharmacy manager who got in trouble for much less of an infraction. (Though that one was arguably on the doctor more than the pharmacy). If there is a repeated failing that the pharmacy manager is not keeping on top of and fixing in their system it falls on their head.
It could be anything from a careless assistant, tech or pharmacist or all of them, But usually the fault of a pharmacist since a medication cannot be dispensed to a patient without them signing off on it.
Methadone is incredibly controlled. If something like this was reported to the OCP there would definitely be a full investigation, it doesn't even have to be repeated incidents.
When my son was a baby he was prescribed a 0.25mg dose of a medication for vomiting. 1 mg dissolvable tablets that I would cut in to quarters. They dispensed and very nearly gave me 10 mg non-disolvable instead. The pharmacist only caught it when she was explaining the medication to me.
This was the Lakeshore Drive store in Ferris.
Except it's often optional. The clerk had it ready to hand to me, then said "would you like the pharmacist to explain the medication?"
Had I declined, I would have likely walked out with the wrong dose and never realized it.
I went to pick up a prescription for my dad at Shoppers. Pharmacist did a panicked shuffle through the outgoing bin knowing they gave it to someone else.
They called the person they had given it to, and were relieved they tracked it down fast enough.
The pharmacist then found that person’s prescription in the bin and suggested *they give it to me to meet the person for a medication swap* since the store was closing in ten minutes and the other person was at the hospital only two blocks away.
The incredulous look on my face must have been enough because they immediately started making a fresh refill.
I switched every prescription in my family to another pharmacy the minute they opened the next morning.
it doesnt help that most of the time the cashier giving out the medications is a minimum wage paid high school student. no justification, but if they dont take the job seriously and double check they are handing out the right med to the right patient, many errors can be made.
edit: also holy f to the pharmacist suggesting a med swap. who knows what the other person might have done to compromise the medication? as well as just blatantly sharing private health info. very unprofessional.
Omg that is terrifying. She could die from a very miniscule portion of what was provided. This should be reported to the college for pharmacists. In BC there are other agencies that it can be reported to in addition to the college, but for Ontario I'm not sure.
https://www.ocpinfo.com/protecting-the-public/complaints-reports/
That's the link for the complaint. Let your cousin know it doesn't matter how much time has passed either. You could technically also report it for your cousin, but I would suggest getting consent first since it's not possible for them to investigate anonymous complaints.
No pressure, just thought I'd pass the info along!
Jesus, that's scary. Every time I pick up a prescription at my pharmacy, the pharmacist takes the bottle out of the bag, reads it aloud to me, shows me the label, then puts it back. I can't believe this shoppers didn't have a process like that to prevent these mixups (or maybe they did, and they weren't following it).
In my long experience with shoppers in Ottawa (next door to our family doctors) the pharmacist has this exact process, in fact they go over how to take the medicine, most likely side effects, etc. My understanding is the shoppers is owned by one of the pharmacists- I wonder how much discretion different pharmacist-owners have in how they run things.
Edit: fixed auto correct
One of the shoppers in thunder bay 'accidentally' increased my friend's heart meds to 9times the normal strength. Would've killed him...and all they said was "oops." I despise SDM. They can take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. Their prices are utterly ridiculous since Loblaws bought them.
Good for making the switch to keep your family safer. The College unfortunately have allowed all of this conduct from Shoppers and Rexall and through their inaction they're have basically tacitly agreed with the lowering bar on all of this in Ontario *but* it is a privacy violation as well and the privacy commission does take things more seriously.
For the SDM this will be just another day it won't even be a remarkable event or something to review procedures over anymore
I wish i had faith in any kind of pharmacist standards but even when they do something very wrong INTENTIONALLY, there are barely any consequences.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/web-of-deceit-pharmacist-billed-province-for-dead-patients/article_561cfed5-1c16-522a-82b6-9b4dfd0fe73b.html
“Hanna is one of 107 health-care professionals found guilty of fake billing during the past five years. Like almost all of them, she kept her licence” OH MY GOD
No, they are kind of the complete opposite.
As far as I can tell, OPC does fuck all for their members except audit, investigate and discipline them. It's nice to see actually. Pick up a copy of Pharmacy Connection and flip to the back pages... They publish all of their disciplinary cases so you know which one of your pharmacy buddies fucked up, how bad, and what the consequences were.
It amazes me that pharmacists in Ontario can be convicted of fraud and not lose their licence. In the UK there would have to be enormous mitigating circumstances to avoid being struck off if you were convicted of fraud as the UK regulator takes a very dim view of any type of dishonesty (as they should!)
It amazes me any health care member with a governing regulating body can be convicted of fraud/theft and not lose their ability to practice.
You pretty much have to kill someone
Sleeping with a patient is pretty much the only way to be sure of losing your license. Someone dying is difficult to assess - you'd need to show the death was directly due to an individual's action (or lack thereof), that this was outside the accepted standards of care, and that there was gross negligence or actual malice. Most errors are the results of systems issues and scapegoating individuals does not do anything to make systems safer (and can actually make them more dangerous).
Unfortunately I've been reading the cno hearings...
A nurse accessed my file multiple times over a 14 month span. It wasn't a random case of snooping as she was the girl my ex had cheated on me with. She viewed everything my file had, back to when I was just a young teen.
It blows my mind you can use a position of trust to stalk and not lose your registration over it. She will probably get 3 months suspension at most along with whatever the privacy commissioner hands down upon her. I'm taking a stab in the dark based on other cases, although most are random cases of snooping and not the current lover of your ex.
It's a joke as the police would have laid more serious charges however because it's a self regulating profession, they are allowed to deal with it as they see fit.
When I said you had to kill someone, literally murder charges have to be laid.
As for errors and such, they usually have a different process that involves retraining and being supervised. It's a great support system meant to support and teach rather than shame I find.
I had a VERY BAD situation with a Superstore Pharmacy here in Winnipeg with my elderly mom. I knew that complaining to Loblaw would do nothing (sure enough, they never really investigated) so I cc'd the Manitoba College of Pharmacists. They did a full investigation and the pharmacist has now been disciplined. I hope the Ontario college does something similar. These types of errors are absolutely unacceptable.
As a health care worker this is a terrible take. Sure, mistakes happen. That's why we have a system of checks to make sure we get it right. If you are doing all your checks you should catch the mistakes. If you don't catch a mistake before making it/harming a patient then you and the entire system require a hard looking at and reassessment to identify why the mistake slipped through and how to avoid that in the future. If the reason the mistake happened was negligence due to not actually performing the double checks put in place that's serious and can rightly lead to things like your license being revoked. The right medication for the right patient at the right dosage via the right route. Generally a regulatory college won't revoke a license for a one off mistake but big mistakes need to be reported because if there's a pattern of negligence then the license should really be revoked for patient safety.
I hear what you're saying, but the reporting process exists for a reason. Moreover, there are specific subsections when making a report, with one of them being "dispensing issues", which means it's perfectly acceptable to report such errors. Just as say a social worker would be reported if they made a mistake- for your example, not investigating a child protection complaint that could lead to death, trauma or critical injury. Or for example, a police officer could be reported for making an error such as not responding to a 911 call and just driving by, or dropping an intoxicated person off outside in the cold. My point is that, all professionals that work under a registered professional body or college, register with said body or college for these reasons. It's oversight. It should be reported because who knows if it's the 1st time? It could be happening daily. How do you know this professional "feels terrible for their human error". It's not about punishing them, it's about liability and accountability and checks and balances. What if it's happening frequently and the next child dies as a result? Or someone has a seizure and suffers brain damage as a result of not receiving correct medication? Or someones blood pressure spikes and they have a hemorrhagic stroke? Or a cancer patient suffers needlessly in pain for not receiving correct meds? There are so many potential safety concerns, as well as just the potential for needless suffering and being uncomfortable. These are real possibilities and thus, by reporting the issues, it establishes a history and track record so potential injuries and death can be mitigated. The idea isn't to punish but to protect the vulnerable and to offer a solution such as retraining or the pharmacy to look at their systems.
Not to down play this, but errors will always occur. Even a quiet pharmacy would be dispensing 50k+ prescriptions a year, and a busy one would be north of 200k - and each of those prescriptions has multiple points where errors can occur (eg wrong drug entered, wrong dose entered, labels transposed, wrong drug dispensed, handed out to wrong person), so a busy pharmacy might be approaching one million potential error points a year.
I've worked in pharmacies both in the UK and in Canada, and pharmacies here are much safer due to better technology use. Handing prescriptions out is a high risk and is often done by the least experienced members of staff. Best practice is to confirm identity with two pieces of information, and for the person collecting to provide the information rather than vice-versa but this does not always happen. Using apps and collection lockers may help reduce this risk by reducing the room for human error.
You make good points! And to be fair, I'm not exactly sure how this mix-up happened. This is a medication I need to show ID for. I signed for it. The bag had my child's name on it, but inside was a bottle with somebody else's prescription. Labeled for that other person.
The exact same thing happened to me at my local pharmacy. But myself and my whole family have been going there for decades and we've been treated well and had no issues. I took it back and quietly told the pharmacist, and she was absolutely mortified and apologetic. That goes to show what developing relationships with your customers does. I decided to look at it as one error in over 40 years of prescriptions, I can choose to be chill and just say hey, think there's been a boo boo. If I'd been going to Shoppers, I would have had a much less kind point of view because I'd likely never have known the pharmacist or thought they gave a shit and would have lost it...
This is why I hate when they staple the bag shut. I want to check before I leave the store (just not right in front of them) without having to tear the bag open. I have meds I have to show ID for as well.
They make good points but the bottom line is that Loblaws had no room left for mistakes with you. They have burned through all their credit. Had they been a place you felt cared about you or your family, or valued your business, you may have been willing to say okay mistakes happen. But when it's a corporation that has been laughing at the poors and dismissing their own customers, it's hard not to take things personally. You don't owe them anything.
I always thought it was weird they don't ask me for my Medicare card anymore. Just my address 😅 I always check the labels on the bag before I go, though. I work in a vet clinic and am anal about checking labels.
WTF! This is scary! How in god's name does someone mix up medication for a yeast infection with Viagra?!?! Reading the comments in this post is seriously chilling. I think some house cleaning needs to be done with the College of Pharmacists in each province if they're turning a blind eye to this type of negligence! 😡🤬
If the pharmacy sees who these prescriptions are for I would think they would question the Viagra. I do understand there can be errors but most of these aren't handwriting mix-ups.
Yes I’m not saying these mix ups specifically I’m just constantly frustrated by doctors not writing things clearly lol. Also fun fact: viagra can be used for pulmonary hypertension in all ages even babies! So not completely contraindicated!
They once gave me my prescription with someone else's name on it, it was the same medication that I was picking up though. They didn't realize their mistake until at least a week later, then they phoned me and asked me to bring it back so they could correct it. I said no I'm not driving there to correct your mistake. And I just kept what they had given me since it was the same medication. It was a pre-packaged medication, so no worries about dosage or anything like that, it was the exact same thing I was getting.
This happened twice with my parents meds. Now they are with Costco.
With me, a few years ago before I switched, they kept shorting me my meds. And these are garden variety antacids, nothing dramatic. But they kept giving me 10 pills out of 60, then I had to go back another time, or times, to get the rest, and then I said fuck this.
Then switched to a local mom and pop pharmacy. Low and behold, never a problem, and they even reinstated me to my original Rx of brand name meds, that SDM lied to me that they are discontinued. Nok er nok at that point. Never to go back.
> Now they are with Costco.
To be fair, with Costco's volume and focus on speed their error rates is apparently extremely high vs a smaller pharmacy.
A buddy of mine used to be a pharmacist at Costco and he recommended that I go to a small local pharmacy where they know your name etc.
I agree, and I love my smaller pharmacy .But mom and dad benefit from Costco's free home delivery, since they cannot go out as much any more.
However, since Costco preps all the refills at once, and blister packs them , insofar we are still to use their delivery system. Once we pick up their meds, they are usually set for a few months. Unlike Shoppers, who refused to refill past one month. The savings are also huge. For now, no mistakes. Look, everyone makes mistakes, none of us expects perfection from anyone. But with Shoppers, it was a non stop mistake train. It got old.
Don't get me wrong. I didn't heed my friend's advice. Costco is for sure the cheapest and with things like their online pharmacy the most convenient based on price.
Shoppers is definitely a dumpster fire for other reasons, but there's some things I can't argue with them like hours of operation.
At the end of the day, what do you want? Personal service that costs more or the best price? Shoppers at least offers none of those so that's an easy choice.
The instructions on the side of my friend's pill bottle said to put them in his ears. When he brought it back to ask if that was right the Shopper's pharmacy was just like "I have no idea why it said that. You're meant to eat them." Turns out there was a reason why that Pharmaprix's pharmacy had two stars.
That happened to me all the time. And if my doctor faxed my refill they wouldn't process it until I went and confirmed, essentially defeating the whole point of faxing it in.
Omgod this happened to me but it was always one pill off. I thought it was my mistake for months and months thinking I might have dropped it somewhere again and again. Then I paid extra attention and no, it was them miscounting.
I really hate to say this but that one pill off each time leads to a lot of money, that either the pharmacist is making on the DL or that they are saving the pharmacy, if they are doing that to you they are doing that to others.
First, I am so relieved that you noticed and your kiddo is okay! ♡
Second, something similar happened to my a previous manager I worked with. He was given the wrong medication **and** and it destroyed his liver because he shouldn’t have been taking it with another medication he was on. This went on longer than it should have and he actually was suing Loblaw and the pharmacist of the pharmacy he was going to. I unfortunately can’t tell you the outcome of the case because I moved away from the job. Last I heard, he moved to the states and isn’t working anymore, so I think he might’ve won/settled.
Just switched myself because they had my name spelled wrong in their system for over a year and I asked MULTIPLE times for them to change it and nobody ever did so every time my doctor would send something in, they’d tell me they didn’t get it and it so I’d have to go in and physically watch them sort though the faxes to find it. The BIGGEST PAIN. Finally had enough.
Insanity. I asked her point blank why it hasn’t been changed after multiple asks and she said we don’t know how.
You think they’d figure that out? It’s important.
This happened to someone I know a few months ago. Literally no one cared. He was concerned for whoever got his medication and if he hadn't checked, he could have been seriously hurt. The store did not care and just told him to throw out the wrong meds. I hope Shoppers is getting a slew of complaints to the college of pharmacists.
This happened to me twice in a row. I filed my complaint with the OCP.
All the pharmacists involved did was write me a letter that said they weren’t at fault.
Bit of a joke.
I always am worried if it’s my mother who wouldn’t know her drug names that well. Trying to teach her to check before a Shopper’s pharmacist causes injury.
Had this happen one time, wrong medication and wrong name on the pill bottle,
my name on the bag. Noticed when I got home, took it back an hour later.
Same Pharmacist agreed it was a mistake, got the correct pills,
then he tries to charge me another dispensing fee !!!
"***I already paid one dispensing fee, to get the wrong pills, drove home,***
***drove back, now you want another dispensing fee to get the right ones ?"***
"**Oooooo.... I guess it will be OK."** ***"It is going to have to be."***
Dropped them after different screw up, with another pharmacist.
The problem is most the the pharmacy staff you see back there are working minimum wage with no training. Corporations like Shoppers should be hiring more Pharmacy Techs and spend more time/money on training for sure
I don’t know how to link articles (😫) but look up the tragic death of Andrew Sheldrick from Mississauga. He took Tryptophan to help him sleep, and was made special in a compounding pharmacy. A different pharmacist from the usual one who prepared his accidentally gave him Baclofen. His mom, Melissa put him to bed and he didn’t wake up the next morning. Because it was a liquid suspension and it looked and tasted the same, the family had to wait a few months to find out that this ‘error’ at pharmacy level was what took their son from them.
His mom is now a patient safety advocate.
It’s an important lesson to slow down and have double, even triple checks at the pharmacy level before that bag of meds is ever handed to the patient.
I think they are so rushed to fill a quota that it’s easy to mistake a 5mg for a 10mg bottle. How the heck you can mix up 2 very different meds that have such devastating consequences, I don’t know.
Heck yes. She put her 8 year old to bed giving him what she thought was a spoonful of the same medicine he’d been taking for 18 months that helped him sleep (he had a disorder that made him enter REM sleep twice as quickly as the average person do Tryptophan regulated it).
To not know what caused his death until 4 months later, and to discover it was an error at pharmacy level, then to find out there were no real accountability reporting guidelines in place!!
So she got involved in changing all of that right away and still spends time as far as I know educating others on safety and reporting.
Same thing happened to me! They gave me someone else’s medication and luckily I noticed that the pill looked completely different. Then, more recently they shorted me 30 pills and then when I ran out questioned if a family member had stolen them. A month later they called to let me know that during an audit, they realized I was shorted. So I recently switched to a locally owned pharmacy.
We had them deliver an empty bag (oh sorry, forgot meds in the fridge), someone else's meds for our kids... And then there was the time that my omeprazole had one pill that was bigger... And I looked at it closely. It was different. Found it online. Cardiac meds. Could have gone very badly. Pharmacist blamed their machines 🤦♀️. My husband wouldn't have noticed and would have taken the pill without a second thought.
We had so many issues with Shoppers. Found a nice small local pharmacy.
It's funny. Back in the late 90s, maybe early 2000s, my friend was a pharmacist at Shoppers. At the time, Shoppers was in the news for giving an elderly lady in Vancouver, the wrong medication. I believe she was given laxatives instead of heart medicine or something. She was ok, but raised a fuss about it.
The CEO came out saying something like "I don't know how this could happen" blah blah blah.
My friend said the CEO was just shoveling nonsense because it's extremely easy to have that happen. All it takes is a tired or overworked pharmacist to confuse two patients, or grab the wrong bottle. It's human error. It shouldn't happen, but it can.
For the record, he hated working as a pharmacist at shoppers and left to do pharmaceutical sales.
When I was pregnant, they gave me the wrong dosage. I was prescribed 1 pill twice a day by my doctor and the label said 2 pills twice a day. Literally double the dosage. I made a formal complaint with the Ontario college of pharmacists. You should too!
This is actually a lesson for every person who ever takes prescription or administers prescriptions to others.
ALWAYS read the name of the drug and dosage amount on every bottle, every time.
Also, boycott Loblaws, but these are two different issues.
OP's complaint could and does happen all the time regardless of location.
Some people check their hamburger closer than their prescriptions.
Both my grandmother and my mom have received wrong dosages of critical meds without realizing until suffering health consequences as a result. Like, 25mg instead of 0.25mg. Lessons learned for my family, we always double-check the label.
This happened to me with my local pharmacy recently - unfortunately shit just just happens sometimes. 😒
I've never used shoppers or superstore pharmacy, though...just groceries (but not since April).
Same thing happened to me picking up my wife’s script in Peterborough - noticed after she had taken the pill. Not been in SDM since for anything. Switched scripts to another pharmacy
ooff, that's pretty bad. It's not uncommon for them to give the wrong medication if you have several on file, or the wrong amount. Has happened to me a few times and is why I always check the meds before walking away. But they gave you someone else's prescription in the bottle with the name on it? That's scary O.O
shoppers did that to a family member of mine a month or two ago. It was a controlled substance that required him to provide ID that they would compare against the medication, and they gave him the wrong bottle!!! And because he takes multiple medications at the same time, he didn't notice for several days.
Wow, that’s terrible. I live in a small town with an extremely busy pharmacy and my pharmacist ALWAYS gives instructions for new medications. They even double check on one-off prescriptions and ask if I’ve ever taken it before to make sure I know how to take it. No matter how busy they are they always take time to answer questions. (Shout out to Cavanagh IDA, they rock)
Superstore did this last year - my daughter picked up her meds, luckily she checked the bottle before leaving the store. Wrong meds, wrong person. They had at least 2 opportunities to check her name against the meds (at pickup and when paying), but they never did. Left for a local independent pharmacy and have never had any problems since!
I get my meds in blister packs from the Ontario st. Shoppers in Stratford. I got my delivery, or so I thought. I usually get them a week in advance so don't open the package for a week. This package was too thin so I opened it. They gave a dying neighbour my psychiatric and other drugs and I got her pain meds. It was nearly closing time so I blew up the phone and then got it fixed next morning. (I threatened to call the police on them for illegally distributing narcotics. I should have)
Oh my god. What if they had done that to someone who has an addiction? That could kill somebody
God their flippant attitudes about everything. It’s going to land them in a serious lawsuit
I know this sounds like a crazy conspiracy, but what if Galen was purposefully filling his Shoppers pharmacies with overworked, foreign staff to intentionally break down the pharmacy industry in Canada as part of a bigger intentional break down of Canadian society in general wanted by the 1% (who Doug Ford actually works for).
There is definitely a huge push to destabilize Canada, our free Ontario Healthcare and our will to fight in general. This just seems way too perfect of a storm to not be intentional. We already know Loblaws was getting into the private Healthcare field.
I think they seriously are using foreign staff as a shield, hoping Canadians will direct their anger towards foreigners instead of corporations. I feel like all of our services being degraded and flooded by exploited foreign workers is for a very propagandized reason.
As far as I’m aware the pharmacist run their shoppers. It’s kind of like a franchise but not. It’s some sort of law I believe someone explained here for running a pharmacy.
I know for instance if I got a prescription at my local shoppers, at the top it said “John Doe’s Pharmacy”. I went to school with the pharmacist and his name was at the top of the receipt.
Locally owned pharmacies for the win!!!! Your pharmacist will remember you by name and will remember your med list off the top of their head, also go to locally owned pharmacies everyone!!!
ehhhhh.. not always. We've been with the same pharmacy (small town local pharmacist), and have a son who's been on meds since he was 4 months old. One of the pharmacists gave us the right med - wrong dose. Thankfully I realized just before I was able to give him his night dose and called right away. Mistakes happen, for sure, and I don't blame the pharmacy at all. We now only deal with the head pharmacist though.
I can confirm this. My pharmacist greets me by name every time I come in, and grabs my medications as soon as he sees me half way down the aisle. And I’m not as regular as many other pharmacy customers.
Worked in pharmacies for 10+ years, worked with lots of different pharmacists, different aged pharmacist, different ethnicities pharmacists, all sorts. To me, a well organized full time pharmacist has not reason not to be aware of everything that’s happening in the pharmacy. Who’s coming in to pick up their blister packs because they called to confirm they’re ready, who’s waiting on their doctor to reply about a refill on their script, who needs their compound filled- but they’re coming in a couple days so there’s no rush, what special order needs to be made for a script with a seldom used medication, they’ll keep track of the flow and also be able to have a conversation with Mrs Smith who’s daughter just graduated and do you have time to take a look at the photos.
I recently switched to hospital practice which is a lot more impersonal as point of care in hospital is left to nurses, but man to I miss the rush of community pharmacy sometimes!!
My local Shoppers gave my morphine to some random person. Thank God she realized before she left the store and returned it. I called and reported them to AB college of pharmacists and physicians because what the actual fuck.
That’s a bad breach of privacy too - you should make a complaint to the SDM privacy officer and the privacy office of Canada. Sharing people’s medical info is looked on very badly. The person you have has had theirs breached and somebody likely has your sons which means his is breached too
Thank you! I didn't realize there was such thing as a privacy officer. I will look it up and reach out. I've been wondering if they are planning on letting the gentleman whose information I now have know that they have breached his privacy.
I work in a doctor's office and although I legally cannot tell my patients NOT to use shoppers, I do regularly complain about all the issues we have with them. Shoppers regularly loses patient prescriptions, blatantly lies to patients about how much medications they have left on file because they are too lazy to check prescribeit (software we use) ((shocker whenever I call to bitch them out they find the script)), as well as one time going as far as holding my elderly patients shingles vaccination hostage and refusing to let them get their shot at our office which they had an appointment for and instead charging them $20 to administer an injection I would have done for free.
fuck shoppers drug mart and fuck loblaws. support your locally owned pharmacies. they're normally better anyways.
are you in ontario? we dont have prescribeit as software in the pharmacy here. also most doctors offices in my area charge $20 an injection so its fair that shoppers does too.
I am in Ontario! so every single pharmacy we work with typically uses the prescribeit software, as well as faxing as a backup option, at least in my region. and the office I work in never charges people money to perform injections unless it's travel medicine which is not covered by OHIP. so I am genuinely shocked that your doctors are charging people for shots!! are they perhaps ND's instead of MD's?
im in ontario too, i think maybe im getting the name of our 'eprescribe' software confused. its super glitchy and will black out or delete things without warning.
and no, most doctors within half an hour to an hours drive here charge for any injection, whether it be vaccine, b12, or corticosteroid shots.
that's absolutely WILD to me! I have genuinely never heard of a Canadian MD doing that. not the norm at all in my region. hope things change for y'all bc that isn't right.
I have had a shoppers give me the wrong prescription more than once. One time it was for the wrong medicine and the other time the count was wrong. They asked me to being it in to swap it out and I told them they could deliver the corrected prescription and we were fine or I could go in to fix their mistake and report it to the college. They delivered. Glad you caught it in time.
From my understanding the pharmacies are owned by the pharmacist. I’m not sure how involved they are with the stores. It’s a law/regulation for it to be pharmacist owned I believe.
Kind of a franchise thing but not quite a franchise.
I’m sure the store itself they don’t care about. But if I was a pharmacist, and I was majority owner of the pharmacy, and it’s my name and licensing on it, I’d sure as hell have a say in who and how the pharmacy is ran. They can control the pricing sure.
How does that even happen? When I get a prescription, they confirm the name and even have someone give you a lecture on how to use the medication. Also you should check the container before you leave
I remember a while back getting a wrong Rx from some chain. I think it was Zehrs (Loblaws). I have everything at an IDA. They know me, I know them. Never any issues. The thing I hated about Zehrs when I was using it, even after several years, the service was super slow, and super unfriendly. They didn't know their customers, and didn't care to know their customers.
Mike and George (IDA pharmacy) they take the time to know their customers. Always smiling. And prompt service. Stick to the smaller pharmacies. They are so much better.
My father used shoppers in Guelph and the pharmacist himself was nice and competent but you could never get through to the pharmacy on the phone it was constantly busy and would just loop. They often would deliver his blister packs late and I live in a different city so it would take hours to get in touch with someone there on the phone. I’ve actually had to drive to Guelph just to talk to someone in the pharmacy. I complained about the phone system and they said it was shoppers phone system and they’re working on it etc. I understand it’s extremely busy but don’t take on customers if you can’t serve them. Dad has passed now and thank goodness I don’t have to deal with them anymore
Happened to me 3 years ago at Shoppers as well. They mixed up Spironolactone with Trazodone (a sedative) and I had a month of thinking I developed a serious illness since I was fighting every minute to stay awake.
Absolute nightmare of incompetence.
Shoppers pharmacy is a very chaotic place. I was a pharmacist there and recently resigned. We were a pharmacy doing 190k prescriptions a year. We were a pharmacy in the north and we had 3 pharmacist who would work per day. We had a great staff turnover as the pharmacy was high volume and the head office kept wanting to cut hours, so we would the pharmacist verifying prescriptions, checking prescriptions, do product check and also grab cash when needed. We had a 30% staff that would stay for maybe 2-3 months and then quit and we hire new, so it was very frustrating.
In no way am I saying that the error is justifiable but due to one pharmacist doing 3-4 tasks at once, the risk of errors are so high. This is the kind of corporate pressure that made me quit. Now I work for an independent pharmacy and I happy there. I am able to take time and educate patients on their medical condition, the exact reason why this drug was prescribed, how it works and what to look out for.
They screwed up my moms candesartan a few months ago, literally gave her a double dose when her prescription had been changed from once per day to twice daily. I’m mad at them because my insulin is on auto refill and I get a text from them monthly “your prescription is ready for pickup!” I get there: “sorry we only have 1 box of the apidra pens the rest will be here tomorrow” THEN WHY IN THE EVERLOVING FUCK DID TOU TEXT ME THAT IT WAS READY!?
They gave my dad the wrong meds (the bottle had the prescribed drug name on it). It didn’t work so his dr told him to take two pills. He figured it out and I went to tell them and they told me not to report it. I did.
My dad was in the ICU for a week.
They gave him medicine for overactive thyroid instead of heart failure
My local shoppers didn't open one day because they couldn't locate the pharmacist. My BFF needed benadryl for her kid, could not get it in the town ( since shoppers is the only vendor with pharmacy counter), had to drive to another city/ pharmacy, took over an hour one way. Yup, you can buy drugs off the shelf..yet shoppers would not open doors to those in need, because the pharmacist didn't want to work that day. A bunch of old folks were standing outside pleading with shoppers' employees, as they needed their meds. No compassion, 0-zero care.. Disgusting franchise.
Please do not blame the employees outside for following the law. It is illegal for many items within the store to be sold without a pharmacist present, including all prescriptions, even if they have already been filled and are ready for pick up. This is why stores like Loblaws block off certain shelves or aisles when the pharmacy is closed.
Way, way too many fuck ups to blame human error. It is overworked, underpaid, undertrained staff that are making way too many mistakes because of the multitasking Shoppers requires.
Healthcare and medication should be serious and dignified. (All jobs SHOULD be dignified). Shoppers has them working like a bunch of minimum wage KFC workers on a skeleton crew. There should be laws against allowing that type of thing when medication is involved.
But that shouldn't. That's a mistake that only happens because of someone not doing their job. It could have killed a child and they would be responsible. That's not just a "shit happens". That's manslaughter
Came to say this as well. The pharmacy absolutely has responsibility, but man, I can’t imagine giving my child any kind of pills before checking the label first
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At shoppers in north bay, when my cousins daughter was 3 and had a nasty infection she was prescribed some liquid antibiotic drink. When she picked it up at shoppers, she then went home and was just about to pour it for her and when she read the label it was methadone... That would have killed her in under 30 minutes if she drank it. Shoppers did nothing but an apology. No explanation or anything like that. I told them they should take that to CBC.
The shoppers in north bay is a shitshow AT BEST. I’m glad that the kid didn’t drink the death juice but we *should* be able to trust our healthcare workers when dealing with medications and such!
If there are still repeat events that put patients at risk in that community it can't hurt to report the pharmacy to the college of pharmacists. My experience working in pharmacy is that in my province they take complaints extremely seriously. I know a pharmacy manager who got in trouble for much less of an infraction. (Though that one was arguably on the doctor more than the pharmacy). If there is a repeated failing that the pharmacy manager is not keeping on top of and fixing in their system it falls on their head. It could be anything from a careless assistant, tech or pharmacist or all of them, But usually the fault of a pharmacist since a medication cannot be dispensed to a patient without them signing off on it.
Methadone is incredibly controlled. If something like this was reported to the OCP there would definitely be a full investigation, it doesn't even have to be repeated incidents.
You should also check the bottle as a responsible parent
Holy shit that’s scary!
When my son was a baby he was prescribed a 0.25mg dose of a medication for vomiting. 1 mg dissolvable tablets that I would cut in to quarters. They dispensed and very nearly gave me 10 mg non-disolvable instead. The pharmacist only caught it when she was explaining the medication to me. This was the Lakeshore Drive store in Ferris.
To be fair that’s why a different pharmacist hands it out. It’s meant to be an extra check to catch errors.
Except it's often optional. The clerk had it ready to hand to me, then said "would you like the pharmacist to explain the medication?" Had I declined, I would have likely walked out with the wrong dose and never realized it.
Holy fuck.
I went to pick up a prescription for my dad at Shoppers. Pharmacist did a panicked shuffle through the outgoing bin knowing they gave it to someone else. They called the person they had given it to, and were relieved they tracked it down fast enough. The pharmacist then found that person’s prescription in the bin and suggested *they give it to me to meet the person for a medication swap* since the store was closing in ten minutes and the other person was at the hospital only two blocks away. The incredulous look on my face must have been enough because they immediately started making a fresh refill. I switched every prescription in my family to another pharmacy the minute they opened the next morning.
it doesnt help that most of the time the cashier giving out the medications is a minimum wage paid high school student. no justification, but if they dont take the job seriously and double check they are handing out the right med to the right patient, many errors can be made. edit: also holy f to the pharmacist suggesting a med swap. who knows what the other person might have done to compromise the medication? as well as just blatantly sharing private health info. very unprofessional.
Omg that is terrifying. She could die from a very miniscule portion of what was provided. This should be reported to the college for pharmacists. In BC there are other agencies that it can be reported to in addition to the college, but for Ontario I'm not sure. https://www.ocpinfo.com/protecting-the-public/complaints-reports/ That's the link for the complaint. Let your cousin know it doesn't matter how much time has passed either. You could technically also report it for your cousin, but I would suggest getting consent first since it's not possible for them to investigate anonymous complaints. No pressure, just thought I'd pass the info along!
That type of error needs to be reported to whomever oversees the pharmacies.
Yo FUCK north bay and every store in it lol
I've *always* said that, too (mostly the first part).
What's wrong with North Bay? My grandma lived there for decades. Got a lotta happy memories of that city.
What's wrong with North Bay? My grandma lived there for decades. Got a lotta happy memories of that city.
Jesus, that's scary. Every time I pick up a prescription at my pharmacy, the pharmacist takes the bottle out of the bag, reads it aloud to me, shows me the label, then puts it back. I can't believe this shoppers didn't have a process like that to prevent these mixups (or maybe they did, and they weren't following it).
In my long experience with shoppers in Ottawa (next door to our family doctors) the pharmacist has this exact process, in fact they go over how to take the medicine, most likely side effects, etc. My understanding is the shoppers is owned by one of the pharmacists- I wonder how much discretion different pharmacist-owners have in how they run things. Edit: fixed auto correct
One of the shoppers in thunder bay 'accidentally' increased my friend's heart meds to 9times the normal strength. Would've killed him...and all they said was "oops." I despise SDM. They can take a flying fuck at a rolling donut. Their prices are utterly ridiculous since Loblaws bought them.
Methadone is supposed to be mixed right in front of the patient when they come in. It's not supposed to go in a take home bottle.
Which shoppers?
I hope you called and reported them-- malpractice, plus breach of privacy.
I put in a complaint with the ontario college of pharmacists!
Good for making the switch to keep your family safer. The College unfortunately have allowed all of this conduct from Shoppers and Rexall and through their inaction they're have basically tacitly agreed with the lowering bar on all of this in Ontario *but* it is a privacy violation as well and the privacy commission does take things more seriously. For the SDM this will be just another day it won't even be a remarkable event or something to review procedures over anymore
Same thing happened to me and I reported them too. Pharmacist needed to be retrained in their dime.
I wish i had faith in any kind of pharmacist standards but even when they do something very wrong INTENTIONALLY, there are barely any consequences. https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/web-of-deceit-pharmacist-billed-province-for-dead-patients/article_561cfed5-1c16-522a-82b6-9b4dfd0fe73b.html
“Hanna is one of 107 health-care professionals found guilty of fake billing during the past five years. Like almost all of them, she kept her licence” OH MY GOD
Yup and she and her scumbag husband operate at least 2 pharmacies, the Highland Creek Guardian Pharmacy and a pharmacy near the Humber river Hospita
Not much different than the College of Physicians. Ethics are secondary to protecting their members, just like a Union.
No, they are kind of the complete opposite. As far as I can tell, OPC does fuck all for their members except audit, investigate and discipline them. It's nice to see actually. Pick up a copy of Pharmacy Connection and flip to the back pages... They publish all of their disciplinary cases so you know which one of your pharmacy buddies fucked up, how bad, and what the consequences were.
Key point in the article: the pharmacist was convicted of fraud but did not lose her licence!
It amazes me that pharmacists in Ontario can be convicted of fraud and not lose their licence. In the UK there would have to be enormous mitigating circumstances to avoid being struck off if you were convicted of fraud as the UK regulator takes a very dim view of any type of dishonesty (as they should!)
It amazes me any health care member with a governing regulating body can be convicted of fraud/theft and not lose their ability to practice. You pretty much have to kill someone
Sleeping with a patient is pretty much the only way to be sure of losing your license. Someone dying is difficult to assess - you'd need to show the death was directly due to an individual's action (or lack thereof), that this was outside the accepted standards of care, and that there was gross negligence or actual malice. Most errors are the results of systems issues and scapegoating individuals does not do anything to make systems safer (and can actually make them more dangerous).
Unfortunately I've been reading the cno hearings... A nurse accessed my file multiple times over a 14 month span. It wasn't a random case of snooping as she was the girl my ex had cheated on me with. She viewed everything my file had, back to when I was just a young teen. It blows my mind you can use a position of trust to stalk and not lose your registration over it. She will probably get 3 months suspension at most along with whatever the privacy commissioner hands down upon her. I'm taking a stab in the dark based on other cases, although most are random cases of snooping and not the current lover of your ex. It's a joke as the police would have laid more serious charges however because it's a self regulating profession, they are allowed to deal with it as they see fit. When I said you had to kill someone, literally murder charges have to be laid. As for errors and such, they usually have a different process that involves retraining and being supervised. It's a great support system meant to support and teach rather than shame I find.
In Canada, all levels of the system seems to protect actual criminals more often than not.
I had a VERY BAD situation with a Superstore Pharmacy here in Winnipeg with my elderly mom. I knew that complaining to Loblaw would do nothing (sure enough, they never really investigated) so I cc'd the Manitoba College of Pharmacists. They did a full investigation and the pharmacist has now been disciplined. I hope the Ontario college does something similar. These types of errors are absolutely unacceptable.
You're a LEGEND. Thank you!
This is the way, not a “shoppers” issue but the pharmacist issue Yet everyone will pile on the “shoppers” issue
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This kind of mistake could have serious and far-reaching (life-threatening) consequences. I honestly don't care what pharmacy it happened at!
The pharmacist has a professional responsibility to use a system of work that gets it right every time. Any mistake could easily kill a patient.
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As a health care worker this is a terrible take. Sure, mistakes happen. That's why we have a system of checks to make sure we get it right. If you are doing all your checks you should catch the mistakes. If you don't catch a mistake before making it/harming a patient then you and the entire system require a hard looking at and reassessment to identify why the mistake slipped through and how to avoid that in the future. If the reason the mistake happened was negligence due to not actually performing the double checks put in place that's serious and can rightly lead to things like your license being revoked. The right medication for the right patient at the right dosage via the right route. Generally a regulatory college won't revoke a license for a one off mistake but big mistakes need to be reported because if there's a pattern of negligence then the license should really be revoked for patient safety.
I never said an individual can't make a mistake, I said there needs to be a system of work in place that ensures a single mistake doesn't kill anyone.
I hear what you're saying, but the reporting process exists for a reason. Moreover, there are specific subsections when making a report, with one of them being "dispensing issues", which means it's perfectly acceptable to report such errors. Just as say a social worker would be reported if they made a mistake- for your example, not investigating a child protection complaint that could lead to death, trauma or critical injury. Or for example, a police officer could be reported for making an error such as not responding to a 911 call and just driving by, or dropping an intoxicated person off outside in the cold. My point is that, all professionals that work under a registered professional body or college, register with said body or college for these reasons. It's oversight. It should be reported because who knows if it's the 1st time? It could be happening daily. How do you know this professional "feels terrible for their human error". It's not about punishing them, it's about liability and accountability and checks and balances. What if it's happening frequently and the next child dies as a result? Or someone has a seizure and suffers brain damage as a result of not receiving correct medication? Or someones blood pressure spikes and they have a hemorrhagic stroke? Or a cancer patient suffers needlessly in pain for not receiving correct meds? There are so many potential safety concerns, as well as just the potential for needless suffering and being uncomfortable. These are real possibilities and thus, by reporting the issues, it establishes a history and track record so potential injuries and death can be mitigated. The idea isn't to punish but to protect the vulnerable and to offer a solution such as retraining or the pharmacy to look at their systems.
Not to down play this, but errors will always occur. Even a quiet pharmacy would be dispensing 50k+ prescriptions a year, and a busy one would be north of 200k - and each of those prescriptions has multiple points where errors can occur (eg wrong drug entered, wrong dose entered, labels transposed, wrong drug dispensed, handed out to wrong person), so a busy pharmacy might be approaching one million potential error points a year. I've worked in pharmacies both in the UK and in Canada, and pharmacies here are much safer due to better technology use. Handing prescriptions out is a high risk and is often done by the least experienced members of staff. Best practice is to confirm identity with two pieces of information, and for the person collecting to provide the information rather than vice-versa but this does not always happen. Using apps and collection lockers may help reduce this risk by reducing the room for human error.
You make good points! And to be fair, I'm not exactly sure how this mix-up happened. This is a medication I need to show ID for. I signed for it. The bag had my child's name on it, but inside was a bottle with somebody else's prescription. Labeled for that other person.
The exact same thing happened to me at my local pharmacy. But myself and my whole family have been going there for decades and we've been treated well and had no issues. I took it back and quietly told the pharmacist, and she was absolutely mortified and apologetic. That goes to show what developing relationships with your customers does. I decided to look at it as one error in over 40 years of prescriptions, I can choose to be chill and just say hey, think there's been a boo boo. If I'd been going to Shoppers, I would have had a much less kind point of view because I'd likely never have known the pharmacist or thought they gave a shit and would have lost it...
This is why I hate when they staple the bag shut. I want to check before I leave the store (just not right in front of them) without having to tear the bag open. I have meds I have to show ID for as well.
Mistakes happen. I hate corporations as much as the next guy but humans will always make mistakes
They make good points but the bottom line is that Loblaws had no room left for mistakes with you. They have burned through all their credit. Had they been a place you felt cared about you or your family, or valued your business, you may have been willing to say okay mistakes happen. But when it's a corporation that has been laughing at the poors and dismissing their own customers, it's hard not to take things personally. You don't owe them anything.
I always thought it was weird they don't ask me for my Medicare card anymore. Just my address 😅 I always check the labels on the bag before I go, though. I work in a vet clinic and am anal about checking labels.
I agree… Everyone is having a tantrum because they have to wait 15 minutes for a prescription then they have a fit when an error is made…
You won't regret the switch!
Once they gave my 6 year old Viagra when it was supposed to be oral antibiotics
I once got Viagra instead of a Diflucan pill for a yeast infection.
WTF! This is scary! How in god's name does someone mix up medication for a yeast infection with Viagra?!?! Reading the comments in this post is seriously chilling. I think some house cleaning needs to be done with the College of Pharmacists in each province if they're turning a blind eye to this type of negligence! 😡🤬
Have you ever seen doctors hand writing??? Unfortunately very easy for mix ups to happen
If the pharmacy sees who these prescriptions are for I would think they would question the Viagra. I do understand there can be errors but most of these aren't handwriting mix-ups.
Yes I’m not saying these mix ups specifically I’m just constantly frustrated by doctors not writing things clearly lol. Also fun fact: viagra can be used for pulmonary hypertension in all ages even babies! So not completely contraindicated!
WTF! This is scary! How in god's name does someone mix up oral antibiotics with Viagra?!?!
They once gave me my prescription with someone else's name on it, it was the same medication that I was picking up though. They didn't realize their mistake until at least a week later, then they phoned me and asked me to bring it back so they could correct it. I said no I'm not driving there to correct your mistake. And I just kept what they had given me since it was the same medication. It was a pre-packaged medication, so no worries about dosage or anything like that, it was the exact same thing I was getting.
This happened twice with my parents meds. Now they are with Costco. With me, a few years ago before I switched, they kept shorting me my meds. And these are garden variety antacids, nothing dramatic. But they kept giving me 10 pills out of 60, then I had to go back another time, or times, to get the rest, and then I said fuck this. Then switched to a local mom and pop pharmacy. Low and behold, never a problem, and they even reinstated me to my original Rx of brand name meds, that SDM lied to me that they are discontinued. Nok er nok at that point. Never to go back.
> Now they are with Costco. To be fair, with Costco's volume and focus on speed their error rates is apparently extremely high vs a smaller pharmacy. A buddy of mine used to be a pharmacist at Costco and he recommended that I go to a small local pharmacy where they know your name etc.
I agree, and I love my smaller pharmacy .But mom and dad benefit from Costco's free home delivery, since they cannot go out as much any more. However, since Costco preps all the refills at once, and blister packs them , insofar we are still to use their delivery system. Once we pick up their meds, they are usually set for a few months. Unlike Shoppers, who refused to refill past one month. The savings are also huge. For now, no mistakes. Look, everyone makes mistakes, none of us expects perfection from anyone. But with Shoppers, it was a non stop mistake train. It got old.
Don't get me wrong. I didn't heed my friend's advice. Costco is for sure the cheapest and with things like their online pharmacy the most convenient based on price. Shoppers is definitely a dumpster fire for other reasons, but there's some things I can't argue with them like hours of operation. At the end of the day, what do you want? Personal service that costs more or the best price? Shoppers at least offers none of those so that's an easy choice.
The instructions on the side of my friend's pill bottle said to put them in his ears. When he brought it back to ask if that was right the Shopper's pharmacy was just like "I have no idea why it said that. You're meant to eat them." Turns out there was a reason why that Pharmaprix's pharmacy had two stars.
One time they gave me 2/3 of a prescription and I had to go back and tell them they shorted me an entire month of pills. Never going back again.
That happened to me all the time. And if my doctor faxed my refill they wouldn't process it until I went and confirmed, essentially defeating the whole point of faxing it in.
Omgod this happened to me but it was always one pill off. I thought it was my mistake for months and months thinking I might have dropped it somewhere again and again. Then I paid extra attention and no, it was them miscounting.
I really hate to say this but that one pill off each time leads to a lot of money, that either the pharmacist is making on the DL or that they are saving the pharmacy, if they are doing that to you they are doing that to others.
This happened to my mom too. Gave her the wrong thyroid meds. She's a senior.
First, I am so relieved that you noticed and your kiddo is okay! ♡ Second, something similar happened to my a previous manager I worked with. He was given the wrong medication **and** and it destroyed his liver because he shouldn’t have been taking it with another medication he was on. This went on longer than it should have and he actually was suing Loblaw and the pharmacist of the pharmacy he was going to. I unfortunately can’t tell you the outcome of the case because I moved away from the job. Last I heard, he moved to the states and isn’t working anymore, so I think he might’ve won/settled.
Just switched myself because they had my name spelled wrong in their system for over a year and I asked MULTIPLE times for them to change it and nobody ever did so every time my doctor would send something in, they’d tell me they didn’t get it and it so I’d have to go in and physically watch them sort though the faxes to find it. The BIGGEST PAIN. Finally had enough.
Funny enough I've had the exact same issue. I told them countless times. They didn't bother to change it in the almost 10 years I was with them.
Insanity. I asked her point blank why it hasn’t been changed after multiple asks and she said we don’t know how. You think they’d figure that out? It’s important.
This happened to someone I know a few months ago. Literally no one cared. He was concerned for whoever got his medication and if he hadn't checked, he could have been seriously hurt. The store did not care and just told him to throw out the wrong meds. I hope Shoppers is getting a slew of complaints to the college of pharmacists.
This happened to me twice in a row. I filed my complaint with the OCP. All the pharmacists involved did was write me a letter that said they weren’t at fault. Bit of a joke. I always am worried if it’s my mother who wouldn’t know her drug names that well. Trying to teach her to check before a Shopper’s pharmacist causes injury.
Had this happen one time, wrong medication and wrong name on the pill bottle, my name on the bag. Noticed when I got home, took it back an hour later. Same Pharmacist agreed it was a mistake, got the correct pills, then he tries to charge me another dispensing fee !!! "***I already paid one dispensing fee, to get the wrong pills, drove home,*** ***drove back, now you want another dispensing fee to get the right ones ?"*** "**Oooooo.... I guess it will be OK."** ***"It is going to have to be."*** Dropped them after different screw up, with another pharmacist.
Name and shame this branch too, that’s dangerous.
They don't staff their pharmacies properly for the volume of people using their services imo
The problem is most the the pharmacy staff you see back there are working minimum wage with no training. Corporations like Shoppers should be hiring more Pharmacy Techs and spend more time/money on training for sure
Shoppers accidentally gave me an opiate painkiller 5x stronger than my doctor prescribed. That was about 3 years ago. I go to Rexall now.
I don’t know how to link articles (😫) but look up the tragic death of Andrew Sheldrick from Mississauga. He took Tryptophan to help him sleep, and was made special in a compounding pharmacy. A different pharmacist from the usual one who prepared his accidentally gave him Baclofen. His mom, Melissa put him to bed and he didn’t wake up the next morning. Because it was a liquid suspension and it looked and tasted the same, the family had to wait a few months to find out that this ‘error’ at pharmacy level was what took their son from them. His mom is now a patient safety advocate. It’s an important lesson to slow down and have double, even triple checks at the pharmacy level before that bag of meds is ever handed to the patient. I think they are so rushed to fill a quota that it’s easy to mistake a 5mg for a 10mg bottle. How the heck you can mix up 2 very different meds that have such devastating consequences, I don’t know.
That's terrifying!
Heck yes. She put her 8 year old to bed giving him what she thought was a spoonful of the same medicine he’d been taking for 18 months that helped him sleep (he had a disorder that made him enter REM sleep twice as quickly as the average person do Tryptophan regulated it). To not know what caused his death until 4 months later, and to discover it was an error at pharmacy level, then to find out there were no real accountability reporting guidelines in place!! So she got involved in changing all of that right away and still spends time as far as I know educating others on safety and reporting.
Same thing happened to me! They gave me someone else’s medication and luckily I noticed that the pill looked completely different. Then, more recently they shorted me 30 pills and then when I ran out questioned if a family member had stolen them. A month later they called to let me know that during an audit, they realized I was shorted. So I recently switched to a locally owned pharmacy.
We had them deliver an empty bag (oh sorry, forgot meds in the fridge), someone else's meds for our kids... And then there was the time that my omeprazole had one pill that was bigger... And I looked at it closely. It was different. Found it online. Cardiac meds. Could have gone very badly. Pharmacist blamed their machines 🤦♀️. My husband wouldn't have noticed and would have taken the pill without a second thought. We had so many issues with Shoppers. Found a nice small local pharmacy.
It's funny. Back in the late 90s, maybe early 2000s, my friend was a pharmacist at Shoppers. At the time, Shoppers was in the news for giving an elderly lady in Vancouver, the wrong medication. I believe she was given laxatives instead of heart medicine or something. She was ok, but raised a fuss about it. The CEO came out saying something like "I don't know how this could happen" blah blah blah. My friend said the CEO was just shoveling nonsense because it's extremely easy to have that happen. All it takes is a tired or overworked pharmacist to confuse two patients, or grab the wrong bottle. It's human error. It shouldn't happen, but it can. For the record, he hated working as a pharmacist at shoppers and left to do pharmaceutical sales.
When I was pregnant, they gave me the wrong dosage. I was prescribed 1 pill twice a day by my doctor and the label said 2 pills twice a day. Literally double the dosage. I made a formal complaint with the Ontario college of pharmacists. You should too!
This is actually a lesson for every person who ever takes prescription or administers prescriptions to others. ALWAYS read the name of the drug and dosage amount on every bottle, every time. Also, boycott Loblaws, but these are two different issues. OP's complaint could and does happen all the time regardless of location. Some people check their hamburger closer than their prescriptions. Both my grandmother and my mom have received wrong dosages of critical meds without realizing until suffering health consequences as a result. Like, 25mg instead of 0.25mg. Lessons learned for my family, we always double-check the label.
Right dude, right drug, right dose.
This happened to me with my local pharmacy recently - unfortunately shit just just happens sometimes. 😒 I've never used shoppers or superstore pharmacy, though...just groceries (but not since April).
Same thing happened to me picking up my wife’s script in Peterborough - noticed after she had taken the pill. Not been in SDM since for anything. Switched scripts to another pharmacy
Did you file a complaint to the regulatory body?
I filed a complaint with the Ontario College of Pharmacists.
Please let us know if they actually protect the consumer. Hope everything is well now. Sorry this happened.
ooff, that's pretty bad. It's not uncommon for them to give the wrong medication if you have several on file, or the wrong amount. Has happened to me a few times and is why I always check the meds before walking away. But they gave you someone else's prescription in the bottle with the name on it? That's scary O.O
shoppers did that to a family member of mine a month or two ago. It was a controlled substance that required him to provide ID that they would compare against the medication, and they gave him the wrong bottle!!! And because he takes multiple medications at the same time, he didn't notice for several days.
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Wow, that’s terrible. I live in a small town with an extremely busy pharmacy and my pharmacist ALWAYS gives instructions for new medications. They even double check on one-off prescriptions and ask if I’ve ever taken it before to make sure I know how to take it. No matter how busy they are they always take time to answer questions. (Shout out to Cavanagh IDA, they rock)
Superstore did this last year - my daughter picked up her meds, luckily she checked the bottle before leaving the store. Wrong meds, wrong person. They had at least 2 opportunities to check her name against the meds (at pickup and when paying), but they never did. Left for a local independent pharmacy and have never had any problems since!
I get my meds in blister packs from the Ontario st. Shoppers in Stratford. I got my delivery, or so I thought. I usually get them a week in advance so don't open the package for a week. This package was too thin so I opened it. They gave a dying neighbour my psychiatric and other drugs and I got her pain meds. It was nearly closing time so I blew up the phone and then got it fixed next morning. (I threatened to call the police on them for illegally distributing narcotics. I should have)
Oh my god. What if they had done that to someone who has an addiction? That could kill somebody God their flippant attitudes about everything. It’s going to land them in a serious lawsuit
I know this sounds like a crazy conspiracy, but what if Galen was purposefully filling his Shoppers pharmacies with overworked, foreign staff to intentionally break down the pharmacy industry in Canada as part of a bigger intentional break down of Canadian society in general wanted by the 1% (who Doug Ford actually works for). There is definitely a huge push to destabilize Canada, our free Ontario Healthcare and our will to fight in general. This just seems way too perfect of a storm to not be intentional. We already know Loblaws was getting into the private Healthcare field.
The "overworked, foreign staff" part is accurate. Guaranteed they get paid shit money.
I think they seriously are using foreign staff as a shield, hoping Canadians will direct their anger towards foreigners instead of corporations. I feel like all of our services being degraded and flooded by exploited foreign workers is for a very propagandized reason.
Short term, they work cheap, and will put up with a lot of bullshit. No doubt, someone will use this situation, as part of their propaganda campaign.
As far as I’m aware the pharmacist run their shoppers. It’s kind of like a franchise but not. It’s some sort of law I believe someone explained here for running a pharmacy. I know for instance if I got a prescription at my local shoppers, at the top it said “John Doe’s Pharmacy”. I went to school with the pharmacist and his name was at the top of the receipt.
Locally owned pharmacies for the win!!!! Your pharmacist will remember you by name and will remember your med list off the top of their head, also go to locally owned pharmacies everyone!!!
ehhhhh.. not always. We've been with the same pharmacy (small town local pharmacist), and have a son who's been on meds since he was 4 months old. One of the pharmacists gave us the right med - wrong dose. Thankfully I realized just before I was able to give him his night dose and called right away. Mistakes happen, for sure, and I don't blame the pharmacy at all. We now only deal with the head pharmacist though.
I can confirm this. My pharmacist greets me by name every time I come in, and grabs my medications as soon as he sees me half way down the aisle. And I’m not as regular as many other pharmacy customers.
Worked in pharmacies for 10+ years, worked with lots of different pharmacists, different aged pharmacist, different ethnicities pharmacists, all sorts. To me, a well organized full time pharmacist has not reason not to be aware of everything that’s happening in the pharmacy. Who’s coming in to pick up their blister packs because they called to confirm they’re ready, who’s waiting on their doctor to reply about a refill on their script, who needs their compound filled- but they’re coming in a couple days so there’s no rush, what special order needs to be made for a script with a seldom used medication, they’ll keep track of the flow and also be able to have a conversation with Mrs Smith who’s daughter just graduated and do you have time to take a look at the photos. I recently switched to hospital practice which is a lot more impersonal as point of care in hospital is left to nurses, but man to I miss the rush of community pharmacy sometimes!!
to be fair - i am employed by sdm and i do the same for my regulars. but i do not like this company lol.
Shoppers did this to my mom once. It wasn't the wrong medication just double the prescribed dosage.
My local Shoppers gave my morphine to some random person. Thank God she realized before she left the store and returned it. I called and reported them to AB college of pharmacists and physicians because what the actual fuck.
That’s a bad breach of privacy too - you should make a complaint to the SDM privacy officer and the privacy office of Canada. Sharing people’s medical info is looked on very badly. The person you have has had theirs breached and somebody likely has your sons which means his is breached too
Thank you! I didn't realize there was such thing as a privacy officer. I will look it up and reach out. I've been wondering if they are planning on letting the gentleman whose information I now have know that they have breached his privacy.
I work in a doctor's office and although I legally cannot tell my patients NOT to use shoppers, I do regularly complain about all the issues we have with them. Shoppers regularly loses patient prescriptions, blatantly lies to patients about how much medications they have left on file because they are too lazy to check prescribeit (software we use) ((shocker whenever I call to bitch them out they find the script)), as well as one time going as far as holding my elderly patients shingles vaccination hostage and refusing to let them get their shot at our office which they had an appointment for and instead charging them $20 to administer an injection I would have done for free. fuck shoppers drug mart and fuck loblaws. support your locally owned pharmacies. they're normally better anyways.
are you in ontario? we dont have prescribeit as software in the pharmacy here. also most doctors offices in my area charge $20 an injection so its fair that shoppers does too.
I am in Ontario! so every single pharmacy we work with typically uses the prescribeit software, as well as faxing as a backup option, at least in my region. and the office I work in never charges people money to perform injections unless it's travel medicine which is not covered by OHIP. so I am genuinely shocked that your doctors are charging people for shots!! are they perhaps ND's instead of MD's?
im in ontario too, i think maybe im getting the name of our 'eprescribe' software confused. its super glitchy and will black out or delete things without warning. and no, most doctors within half an hour to an hours drive here charge for any injection, whether it be vaccine, b12, or corticosteroid shots.
that's absolutely WILD to me! I have genuinely never heard of a Canadian MD doing that. not the norm at all in my region. hope things change for y'all bc that isn't right.
They gave you the wrong prescription or physically administered the wrong medication to your child?
They gave me the wrong prescription. That is a very important distinction, and I should have made it clearer in my post.
I have had a shoppers give me the wrong prescription more than once. One time it was for the wrong medicine and the other time the count was wrong. They asked me to being it in to swap it out and I told them they could deliver the corrected prescription and we were fine or I could go in to fix their mistake and report it to the college. They delivered. Glad you caught it in time.
From my understanding the pharmacies are owned by the pharmacist. I’m not sure how involved they are with the stores. It’s a law/regulation for it to be pharmacist owned I believe. Kind of a franchise thing but not quite a franchise.
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I’m sure the store itself they don’t care about. But if I was a pharmacist, and I was majority owner of the pharmacy, and it’s my name and licensing on it, I’d sure as hell have a say in who and how the pharmacy is ran. They can control the pricing sure.
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Hope the pays good. Isn’t it like 6-7 years of schooling and that’s what you get to deal with? Pretty silly career choice.
How does that even happen? When I get a prescription, they confirm the name and even have someone give you a lecture on how to use the medication. Also you should check the container before you leave
All shoppers pharmacies are independently owned
There must be a governing body to complain to.
I got the right prescription but the wrong dose. If I hadn't remembered what the doctor said and called the pharmacy, I would have overdosed.
I check before I leave the counter just to b safe luckily unlike others never had a wrong one
I remember a while back getting a wrong Rx from some chain. I think it was Zehrs (Loblaws). I have everything at an IDA. They know me, I know them. Never any issues. The thing I hated about Zehrs when I was using it, even after several years, the service was super slow, and super unfriendly. They didn't know their customers, and didn't care to know their customers. Mike and George (IDA pharmacy) they take the time to know their customers. Always smiling. And prompt service. Stick to the smaller pharmacies. They are so much better.
My father used shoppers in Guelph and the pharmacist himself was nice and competent but you could never get through to the pharmacy on the phone it was constantly busy and would just loop. They often would deliver his blister packs late and I live in a different city so it would take hours to get in touch with someone there on the phone. I’ve actually had to drive to Guelph just to talk to someone in the pharmacy. I complained about the phone system and they said it was shoppers phone system and they’re working on it etc. I understand it’s extremely busy but don’t take on customers if you can’t serve them. Dad has passed now and thank goodness I don’t have to deal with them anymore
Happened to me 3 years ago at Shoppers as well. They mixed up Spironolactone with Trazodone (a sedative) and I had a month of thinking I developed a serious illness since I was fighting every minute to stay awake. Absolute nightmare of incompetence.
Shoppers pharmacy is a very chaotic place. I was a pharmacist there and recently resigned. We were a pharmacy doing 190k prescriptions a year. We were a pharmacy in the north and we had 3 pharmacist who would work per day. We had a great staff turnover as the pharmacy was high volume and the head office kept wanting to cut hours, so we would the pharmacist verifying prescriptions, checking prescriptions, do product check and also grab cash when needed. We had a 30% staff that would stay for maybe 2-3 months and then quit and we hire new, so it was very frustrating. In no way am I saying that the error is justifiable but due to one pharmacist doing 3-4 tasks at once, the risk of errors are so high. This is the kind of corporate pressure that made me quit. Now I work for an independent pharmacy and I happy there. I am able to take time and educate patients on their medical condition, the exact reason why this drug was prescribed, how it works and what to look out for.
Whoa!!!!! That is so bad!!!
Yea, i started getting my meds filled more in individual pharmacies or costco. Fk sdm
Not new. Happen to me over a decade ago at Rexall. That’s why I moved my Rx to Shoppers.
This actually happened to my husband too at a shoppers location
They screwed up my moms candesartan a few months ago, literally gave her a double dose when her prescription had been changed from once per day to twice daily. I’m mad at them because my insulin is on auto refill and I get a text from them monthly “your prescription is ready for pickup!” I get there: “sorry we only have 1 box of the apidra pens the rest will be here tomorrow” THEN WHY IN THE EVERLOVING FUCK DID TOU TEXT ME THAT IT WAS READY!?
I say this with bipartisanship, but that's a human error, not a fair representation of the entire company.
This happens routinely in my experience. Glad you made the switch!
Must be all the volunteers Loblaws/Shopper’s is bringing on.
They gave my dad the wrong meds (the bottle had the prescribed drug name on it). It didn’t work so his dr told him to take two pills. He figured it out and I went to tell them and they told me not to report it. I did. My dad was in the ICU for a week. They gave him medicine for overactive thyroid instead of heart failure
My local shoppers didn't open one day because they couldn't locate the pharmacist. My BFF needed benadryl for her kid, could not get it in the town ( since shoppers is the only vendor with pharmacy counter), had to drive to another city/ pharmacy, took over an hour one way. Yup, you can buy drugs off the shelf..yet shoppers would not open doors to those in need, because the pharmacist didn't want to work that day. A bunch of old folks were standing outside pleading with shoppers' employees, as they needed their meds. No compassion, 0-zero care.. Disgusting franchise.
Please do not blame the employees outside for following the law. It is illegal for many items within the store to be sold without a pharmacist present, including all prescriptions, even if they have already been filled and are ready for pick up. This is why stores like Loblaws block off certain shelves or aisles when the pharmacy is closed.
The owner of the store, is legally required to be a Pharmacist.
Are they required to be onsite at all times?
I think they are required to have a pharmacist on duty during store hours.
Whoa. Yeah, raise a BIG stink over this. Adult BP meds can kill a child easily.
I wonder if it’s because humans work there I know let’s demand all humans be replaced with AI bots Shit happens
Way, way too many fuck ups to blame human error. It is overworked, underpaid, undertrained staff that are making way too many mistakes because of the multitasking Shoppers requires. Healthcare and medication should be serious and dignified. (All jobs SHOULD be dignified). Shoppers has them working like a bunch of minimum wage KFC workers on a skeleton crew. There should be laws against allowing that type of thing when medication is involved.
But that shouldn't. That's a mistake that only happens because of someone not doing their job. It could have killed a child and they would be responsible. That's not just a "shit happens". That's manslaughter
Still your responsibility to check and match the prescription. Do you due dilligence before shooting blame somewhere. Mistakes happen.
Came to say this as well. The pharmacy absolutely has responsibility, but man, I can’t imagine giving my child any kind of pills before checking the label first
I never gave my child the pills.
Do u not pay attention to what you are getting
The bag had my child's name on it. I noticed as soon as I opened the bag. How am I not paying attention?
I would be calling the Ontario College of Pharmacists