The Regional Heath Services Department (RHSD) yesterday refuted allegations that pensioner Elfreida Benjamin was given expired medication by the Leonora Cottage Hospital (LCH).
In a statement issued yesterday, the RHSD relayed a response from the acting administrator of the LCH. The RHSD, a unit within the Ministry of Health, said: “…we would like to clarify this issue, and declare that no expired medication is in use at the institution [the LCH] and as such it is therefore impossible for any expired drugs to be issued to this or any other patient attended to by this hospital.”
Benjamin, 74, died at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPHC) last Thursday, almost two weeks since she was admitted after using the expired medication allegedly given to her at the LCH. A member of the team of doctors who had been tending to the woman at the GPHC told her family that the woman’s condition may have possibly been due to an allergic reaction to the medication she had been using.
Captopril, a tablet used to treat hypertension, was among the tablets which the woman had been given and was stamped with an expiry date of July 2010. Another tablet, Emnorm 500, which is used to treat type-two diabetes, also expired in February 2011. Elfreida was also using several other tablets which were stamped with a March 2011 expiry date; the same month she was given the medication.
Region Three Regional Health Officer (RHO) Dr. Ravindranauth Persaud had initially refuted the allegations made by the woman’s husband, 84-year-old George Benjamin. Persaud had said that the LCH has traced the tablets down to the batch number and the bottle from which they came and it is not possible that the medication was expired. The medication which was given to Elfreida, he had said, has a high turnover rate and often the LCH would have to make emergency orders to replenish their stock.
The RHSD joined the RHO in refuting the allegations and said that Elfreida, of Lot 1 South Public Road, Cornelia Ida, West Coast Demerara, visited the LCH regularly and was being treated for a range of medical conditions. The woman’s most recent visit to the LCH, the statement said, was on March 24. Elfreida, the RHSD reported, was seen by a doctor and “was diagnosed with an Acute Respiratory tract Infection (ARI) and Tonsillitis.”
Elfreida, the statement said, was given “a prescription of Amoxillin (500mg)… [which] has an expiry date of 07/2012, (Ibuprofen 200mg)… with an expiry date of 08/2012, [and] Chlorophan suspension.” During these recent visits, the RHSD said, Elfreida was never issued with Captopril tablets.
Prior to her last visit, Elfreida had visited the LCH on October 19, 2010 and was diagnosed with lesions to the first toe of the left foot by the same physician. Elfreida, according to the RHSD, a known diabetic patient, was treated this time with “Metformin, Vitamin B complex, Amoxillin 250 mg and Neomycin+ Bacitracin ointment, all of which were supplied … by the pharmacist and none expired.”
On April 26, 2010 the woman had also visited the LCH and was diagnosed with hypertension and diabetes by the attending doctor. It was during this visit that she was treated with Captopril. In April 2010, Elfreida was given “Metformin, Vitamin B complex, Captopril, ASA 81mg, and Voltaren, all of which were supplied …by the pharmacist” at the LCH.
The public health sector, the RHDS stressed “does not stock expired medication; more so drugs that are received are extensively and efficiently (used) resulting (in) a swift turnover time for all medication issued.”
Insisted
In a recent visit to Stabroek News, George had produced several cards of expired medication. Among them was the card of Captopril which expired last July. The man insisted again yesterday that these tablets were given to his wife in March, 2011, when she visited the LCH. He further said that Elfreida visited the LCH at least two more times during March, 2011 and was given tablets during all of her visits.
George said his wife started vomiting a short time after she took her first dose of medication on March 25, after returning from the hospital.
By the next morning, Elfreida’s face was swollen and there were black boils about her body. The woman also complained of pain in the chest and throat, her lips were dried and cracked and she could not swallow anything.
However, the RHDS said that information received from the Ministry of Health bond located at Farm, East Bank Demerara shows that the ministry never purchased Captopril tablets with the batch number VICO1 manufactured in August 2008 and stamped with a July 2010 expiry date. Elfreida, the RHDS said, may have obtained the tablets from some other supplier.
“We didn’t buy no tablets. All the tablets my wife was using was what the hospital give her when she visit them in March,” Benjamin stressed when told of the statement made by the RHSD.
The man had explained that Elfreida had visited the LHC for the last time on March 25. The following day she was rushed to the GPHC and George alleged overhearing a conversation between the attending doctor and her colleagues and then on the phone with someone from the LCH. George had also reported that he was told by the doctor that some of the tablets which he had handed over to her upon request were expired. “I got a good memory. I know what the doctor tell me that day and I know what I hear she telling her colleagues them about the tablets being expired and then she show it to me and I know what I see,” George said.
In response to this the RHSD said: “It should be noted also that no staff of the Leonora Hospital nor the Regional Health Services Department has been contacted by any staff of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation regarding Mr. Benjamin’s claim.”
The RHSD said that its efforts to contact George on his house phone to clarify the issue have been futile. Region Three RHO Persaud had also extended an invitation through this newspaper for George and his relatives to visit him to discuss the matter.
George told Stabroek News that after his wife was admitted to the GPHC, he had made repeated efforts to reach a relevant official at the LCH.
The man said that he had requested access to his wife’s medical records but was informed that there were none available. “After I do all the running around then they suddenly expect me to go running into them when they read,” George said, “but it don’t work so. If they say they have been calling my house phone then somebody from the LCH could have visited my house to find me. I don’t live far from there.”
