'It could have been fatal:' North Carolina woman says pharmacy gave her the wrong insulin
A Mocksville woman has filed a complaint with the North Carolina Board Of Pharmacy after she says she was recently given the wrong insulin at a Walgreens pharmacy.
This woman from Mocksville, who didn’t want her identity revealed, says she’s had type 1 diabetes for 24 years. She has worn an insulin pump for 23 years.
She says she’s never had a problem like this before, so she didn’t think something like this could happen.
"I was like, surely, you know, they can't give you the wrong insulin,” the woman said.
The woman says she normally uses NovoLog insulin, and the one she was given is called Novolin. Thinking it was just a generic brand, she thought nothing of it until she saw the bottles.
“I noticed that the insulin was milky white versus clear like it normally is. So that raised a red flag," she said.
She says she was ready to put it into her pump, but "something told me to double-check.”
She then took a second look and realized the Walgreens pharmacy located at 901 Yadkinville Road in Mocksville had given her long-acting insulin.
She said she contacted the pharmacy, who told her they had made a mistake and given her the wrong insulin. "I'm not normally one to complain, I know mistakes happen all the time, and I just go with the flow, but just with this one you know it took some time for it to settle in this could have been fatal."
The woman says if it had been a normal day, she would’ve put it into her pump without thinking, but because she was home and not in a rush, she noticed the difference in bottles.
She shared her story with WXII to bring attention to what happened and to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else.
“I just feel like it's a very serious incident, and we trust that when we are given medication, that it's correct. And it needs to be correct," she said.
She also encourages others who take prescribed medication to double-check it before taking anything.
WXII reached out to Walgreens corporate for comment about these claims. They sent the following statement.
"In the event of any prescription error, our first concern is always for a patient's well-being. Our multi-step procedure includes several safety checks to minimize the chance of human error and we have reviewed this process with our pharmacy staff in order to prevent such occurrences.”
The North Carolina Board Of Pharmacy said they are investigating the woman's complaint she filed.