Wrong dispensing of drugs is medical negligence liable to the prosecution of pharmacists, apprentice pharmacists and dispensers.

Dr. Dennis Aloysius in his "Island" article on Medical negligence favours a good doctor patient relationship to avoid litigation for medical negligence.

A communicative Doctor and Pharmacist and Pharmacist and patient relationship is conducive to the correct dispensing of correct drugs with correct directions for use, with patient counselling, which patients complain of as lacking.

Illegibly written prescriptions, misread, are often the cause of the dispensing of wrong drugs.

The arrangement of drugs, in pharmacies, according to their curative uses is a transparent educative guide to correct drug selection.

Recently, an injection of Suxamethonium Chlorida, a muscle relaxant, was negligently dispensed, without a look at the label on it, as a solvent, with an injection of measles, which was mixed with the measles vaccine without a look at the label on it and injected to cause the death of the recepient.

In the practice of pharmacy, it is still not the healthy tradition to have cautionary and advisary labels on dispensed medicines as specified in the B.N.F. to prevent the wrong use of drugs causing injury to health and possible litigation for dispensing negligence.

Mervyn Burrows
Moratuwa