Pharmacists Whose Abortion Drug Mistake Ended Mom's Twin Pregnancy Could Get Licenses Back, Distraught Mom Learns: Report
Two Nevada pharmacists have been fined and their licenses suspended after a pregnant woman was mistakenly given abortion drugs.
The woman’s unborn children died in the 2019 incident, according to an exclusive report by KLAS-TV.
“They just killed my baby,” Timika Thomas said when she realized what had happened. “Both my babies, because I transferred two embryos.”
Thomas said she had undergone in vitro fertilization to have two embryos implanted, because of damage from two prior ectopic pregnancies.
The IVF clinic had given her a prescription for hormones to “trick her body” into producing the pregnancy hormones, she told KLAS. She said she had the prescription filled at a CVS pharmacy in Las Vegas.
But very soon, she said, she realized something was wrong.
“I started cramping really bad,” Thomas said. “It was extreme. It was painful.”
She checked the label on the bottle she had been issued by the pharmacy and looked up the drug on the internet. She said she was horrified at what she learned.
“The first thing I read is it’s used for abortions,” she told the news outlet.
KLAS cited documents showing that “two technicians and two pharmacists made a series of errors that led to Thomas being given the wrong medication, which essentially terminated her budding pregnancy on the spot.”
“One technician – incorrectly believing she knew the generic name for the brand prescribed by the doctor – entered the wrong name into the prescription,” the outlet reported. “One pharmacist did not catch the error, and another pharmacist failed to counsel Thomas when she came to pick up her medication.”
Thomas filed a complaint with the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy, which met in September, and testified about the incident.
As a result, KLAS reported, the board fined the two pharmacists and provisionally suspended their licenses.
“If both pharmacists avoid disciplinary action over the next 12 months, pay fines and take continuing education credits, their licenses will be reinstated,” KLAS reported.
“All I got was a sorry,” Thomas said. “It will never be good enough.”
In a follow-up story on the incident, KLAS reported that the pharmacists accepted blame for the deadly mix-up, but one of them pointed to corporate practices by CVS that set the stage for such a mistake to happen.
“She told the board that CVS pressured her to meet certain ‘metrics’ and reduced staff while increasing the workload,” KLAS reported. “She said she was overwhelmed.”
“It was not a place that I really felt was safe to work in,” the pharmacist told the board. “Even if you had brought up concerns about it, there was not really anything that ever changed.”
Similar complaints were voiced in late September when CVS pharmacists walked off the job in Kansas City, “resorting to a drastic form of protest to highlight what they say are unsafe and stressful work conditions tied to a widespread lack of proper staffing,” NPR reported.
“CVS has cut back on staffing, including less time for technicians to assist pharmacists, even as the demand for prescriptions and vaccines grow, the protesters say,” according to NPR.
USA Today reported that up to 22 stores in the Kansas City area were impacted by the walkout.
CVS chief pharmacy officer Prem Shah issued a memo to Kansas City staff to address the concerns, according to the report.
“I want to apologize to our pharmacy teams that we haven’t addressed these concerns in the region more quickly,” Shah wrote in the memo.
“With the currently unprecedented demand for vaccinations from our patients in mind, we are taking a series of actions effective immediately,” Shah continued.
He pledged to provide “additional resources” to stores, allowing them to adjust appointments and fill open positions.
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