CVS pharmacists accidentally gave Las Vegas mother Timika Thomas a drug that terminated the lives of her twins in utero instead of a medication that would help her pregnancy.
In 2019, after having four lovely children, Thomas and her husband decided to try for just one more baby. Thomas was in her thirties and ended up having trouble getting pregnant, 8 News Now reported Monday. Thomas experienced two ectopic pregnancies, a condition in which the egg implants in the fallopian tubes instead of the uterus, and had to have her fallopian tubes removed.
The Thomas family ended up pursuing Invitro fertilization (IVF) and two embryos were inserted.
She was sent home with a number of prescriptions, including vaginal suppositories, that would encourage her body to produce enough hormones to help establish her pregnancy. She went to her local Las Vegas CVS to pick up the drug, but after two doses, she “knew something was wrong."
“I started cramping really bad,” Thomas said, according to the outlet. “It was extreme. It was painful.”
Thomas looked at the bottle of drugs and started researching what it was, only to find she’d been given a drug that’s used for abortions.
"They just killed my baby,” she reportedly said to herself at the time adding, “Both my babies, because I transferred two embryos.”
Thomas was, as any mother would be, heartbroken. She thought she was taking medication to help her budding pregnancy, not end it.
The report states the CVS pharmacist who gave Thomas the drugs thought she knew the generic name for the medication that Thomas needed, but she was mistaken. The pharmacist entered the wrong name and never caught the error. To make matters worse, another pharmacist didn’t counsel Thomas about the dangers of the abortion-inducing drugs when Thomas came to pick them up, which she should have done. If she had, Thomas would have likely noticed that the drug she was being handed was incorrect.
According to 8 News Now, Thomas filed a complaint with the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy which met just last month. The pharmacists were merely fined and had their licenses suspended. After 12 months, those pharmacists, whose negligence killed two innocent babies, can - and likely will - get their licenses back.
Here’s what CVS told 8 News Now about the situation:
We’ve apologized to our patient for the prescription incident that occurred in 2019 and have cooperated with the Nevada Board of Pharmacy in this matter. The health and well-being of our patients is our number one priority and we have comprehensive policies and procedures in place to support prescription safety. Prescription errors are very rare, but if one does occur, we take steps to learn from it in order to continuously improve quality and patient safety.
CVS’ attorney insisted that CVS itself shouldn’t be penalized for the work of its negligent employees, insisting that “[CVS] really didn’t do anything wrong,” according to 8 News Now.
Yet Thomas was insulted, and justifiably so, saying, “I felt like that was not okay because he should have took initiative for the company as a whole.”
Ultimately, the pharmaceutical giant left it with an apology. But a “sorry” doesn’t really justify killing two innocent babies and causing such heartbreak to a family.
