when the psych hospital stuffs up!
 

the other night I was given a wrong med and had some not so good side effects from it. was wondering if others had been in a psych unit and had something similar happen to them?

I know these things shouldnt happen but occassionally they do (no one is perfect)

so yeh what are your experiences?

I have had this happen to me. I was given a completely different medication which I had actually been taken off a few years before because of how badly I reacted to it.

It sounds like you have a good grip on the situation, in that you are able to recognise that mistakes do happen and that nobody is perfect.

Is the situation going to be taken forward? Like, has somebody been made aware of the error?

I know what I found helpful was to check my medication before taking it. I don't know if it's the same for you but I have become pretty familiar with what my medication looks like. It happened a second time, but this time I recognised the pill was completely different and whilst I felt anxious to bring ths up with the staff nurse, it wasn't a problem at all. We laughed it off and I was avoided the unpleasant side effects!

I have dealt with that situation similarly to Lottie. I was given the wrong meds in my tot a couple of times and I saw them and said "these ain't mine". I'm really vigilant about what medication I take and have to know exactly what they are and only feel comfortable if I see the packets beforehand. Sometimes the same tablets come in different forms (I've had spherical, round, oblong and VERY oblong Risperidone tablets before!) so if something looks different I just check it out with the nurse doing meds.

Don't be worried about wanting to know what you're taking.

thanks guys

yeh the nurse on was very apolegetic and an incident report was written up. I also put in a complaint about it yesterday...

I feel bad about putting in the complaint but what if they had given me a med I was allergic too or it reacted badly with my other meds?
and besides med mistakes should not happen anyway... its too risky with possible side affects and what not...

It might feel hard for you to do but a complain is the best way for them to be officially made aware the mistake happened - and if they officially made aware they can be informed of why it happened and changes they can make to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Hope you're okay x

One night, they knew I had been drinking and yet they gave me meds. I was prescribed 4 lorazepam over 24 hours, the nurse gave me 8 within 4 hours, zopiclone, and I had oramorph prescribed once every 4 hours, I had it twice within 3 hours. (I don't remember the night at all really) - the next day I was completely out of it, I threw up and kept almost passing out. Nothing was ever done with it, I wish I'd have put a complaint in, but hey ho!

I had a couple of incidents while I was IP. I only put in a complaint about one instance because the other one was a relatively minor case of human error and the staff involved admitted their mistake, apologised and did all the right things to deal with it. The other time really upset me though, and I did put in a complaint. I was in an EDU on bedrest and they'd just had me seen by a specialist from another hospital because my heart was causing concern. About an hour later a nurse came in with a tablet for me, which he said had been prescribed by the visiting doctor. I repeatedly asked him what it was called and what it was for but he just shrugged and insisted that I take it. He came back later and told me the name. It was a med I'd never heard of so I text the name to my sister to check the BNF for me, and it turned out it was a diuretic used in the management of heart failure. I obviously panicked because I knew there was something going wrong with my heart and, although no one had told me the outcome of the assessment, I was obviously being treated for heart failure at the grand age of 22!
The next day I was informed by the resident medic that the medication had been meant for an older patient on another ward. Not only had I been awake all night worrying for nothing, but I'd been given a diuretic, which was dangerous given my medical state at the time. The main reason I decided to put in a complaint was that I repeatedly asked the nurse what he was giving me and what it was for. He didn't know and refused to check until I'd taken it. When I was nursing we were told never to give a patient medication if you didn't know what it was, what it was prescribed for and any likely interactions and side-effects. There's no excuse for that sort of error.
Don't feel bad for complaining, people do make mistakes but there are policies and procedures in place to keep patients safe, and if the staff were following procedure to the letter (which admittedly is a pain in the ass but is clearly there for a reason) then it shouldn't have happened.

I always knew exactly what my pills looked like and I always insisted on staring at the boxes that the nurses were taking out when I was given meds. Once they nearly gave me promethazine instead of procyclidine hydrochloride, but I told them it was wrong and insisted that they take the pill out of the correct box in front of me. But I have seen it happen to another patient.

Don't worry if the medication error has been reported the nurse who made it will reprimanded and it is NHS policy (I'm guessing your in an NHS hospital) for drug errors to result in a warning and re-traning/extra trainning.

If you had been allergic to it the nurse probibly would have been suspended.


Unfortunately this happens often. Not because of poor nursing but mostly because humans make errors.
Sorry this happened to you. X

thanks guys for all sharing your experiences.

and I am in a private psych hosp

they once gave me lots of PRN when i had taken amphetamines.

to be fair, they didnt know, but it was pretty obvious! and they could have OD'd me.

in several hospitals, ive seen nurses OD people, give people the wrong meds, i know what my meds look like and everything, but sometimes if i havnt been in the right state of mind, ive just taken the meds they give me.

i also had one nurse try to dissolve normal paracetamol tablets in water, instead of soluble.....

I've not been given the wrong meds, but I've had nurses lose my meds for a few days and this was an anti depressant with really bad withdrawal symptons so I was really ill because of it.

My psych once changed my medication to an AP that had given me horrendous side effects in the past. It was also a drug that had ceased to work, so it would have probably been useless even if I had agreed to take it. Thankfully I was able to notify one of the nurses and she told the doctor, who then decided on something different.

I feel so stupid for complaining... this arvo the unit manager came to speak to me and my complaint was also in my file which my dr saw and read....

like everyone knows now and I feel so bad!

When I was hospitalized after my attempt, the nurse gave me 10 mg of Ambien to put me to sleep. I slept walk and had horrific visual and auditory hallucinations. I will never touch Ambien again.

this has happened to me too.. not on my ADs but a quit smoking pill i was trying, i had to bring in my own and i gave it to a nurse and she lost them!..(totally messed up my quit smoking with a buddy attempt)

they forgot to give me my ADs for 4 days, that was horrible, on the 4th day i panicked and clicked i hadnt had them.. i think a report was written up about that.. ( i didnt think about it sooner coz the amount of other crap i was drugged up on, very drowsy..).. ooh same visit.. i was sent up to the ward from ED and no one came in to check on me for 2 hours! it was only when i got in pain again and buzzed they even knew i was there!.. that was another report, sheese.. heh..