Girl dies of peanut allergy after pharmacy refuses emergency medication...
 

THIS is tragic teenager Emma Sloan who died on a city street just minutes after suffering a fatal allergic reaction. Emma (14) was out for a pre-Christmas meal with her family when she accidentally ate a nut-based sauce and suffered a severe allergic reaction

But when her mother rushed to a nearby pharmacy to get help, she was refused a life-saving adrenaline injection because she didn't have a prescription.

The distraught mother was told to bring her daughter to hospital but the two had only got a few yards away when the teenager collapsed.

Emma's mother, Caroline, told the Irish Independent: "I'm so angry I was not given the epipen to inject her. I was told to bring Emma to an A&E department.

"My daughter died on a street corner with a crowd around her. How could a peanut kill my child?"

The nightmarish series of events began near O'Connell Street in Dublin on Wednesday night. The family were eating at Jimmy Chung's chinese s buffet on Eden Quay when Emma mistakenly chose a sauce with nuts in it.

"Emma has always been very careful and would check the ingredients of every chocolate bar and other foods to be sure they didn't contain nuts," her mother Caroline said.

"She had a satay sauce. She thought it was curry sauce because it looked like curry sauce and smelt like curry," Ms Sloan (40) said.

"I'm not blaming the restaurant because there was a sign saying 'nuts contained' but it wasn't noticed. After a while, Emma began to say 'I can't breathe, I can't breathe'."

The teenager didn't have her 'epipen' injection device, often carried by people with allergies, with her.

Her mother told how she went around the corner to Hamilton Long chemist on O'Connell Street and desperately asked for an epipen injection to bring to her daughter outside.

"He told me I couldn't get it without a prescription. He told me to bring her to A&E.

"I left and I knew we'd have to run all the way to Temple Street hospital. But she only got as far as the corner with Abbey Street when she collapsed. She died on the footpath," said the grieving mother, fighting back tears.

"A doctor was passing and had tried to help and put her into the recovery position. Ambulance and fire brigade men worked on her. But she was gone."

Speaking to the Irish Independent, Ms Sloan appealed "to parents of children with nut allergies to make sure their child always carry an epipen with them. She said: "I took down the Christmas tree this morning. I'll never celebrate Christmas again."

Ms Sloan thanked the doctors and fire brigade who tried to help her daughter.

Children's Minister Frances Fitzgerald has now requested that an investigation be launched into the girl's death. A spokeswoman said: "She is horrified and upset for the family. Her thoughts are with the family and she has spoken to Minister Reilly and asked him to examine the facts of the case and precisely how this happened."

A senior member of staff at the Hamilton Long pharmacy told the Irish Independent that they had been advised by gardai to make no public comment whatsoever about the incident.

A member of the pharmacy profession in Dublin later told this newspaper that regulations prohibit the dispensing of epipen injections without a prescription.

It is classed as an 'S1B' drug containing adrenaline and has the potential to do harm. Pharmacists are not allowed to give the injection.

A security guard who witnessed the tragedy unfold on O'Connell Street said he was "very stressed" by it.

Mujahid Najeebhun (29), a security man at Clarkes shoes, said: "I saw the girl lying on the ground. She was in the recovery position and there was something coming out of her mouth. Then people noticed she wasn't breathing. A woman was shouting, 'My daughter is dying.'

"The people saw the fire brigade at the traffic lights and they were shouting at them to hurry up. They came and began giving her CPR. I'm so sad that the girl died."

A member of management at Jimmy Chung's said the satay sauce had a sign over it which read: "Satay Sauce. Nuts Contained."

The restaurant owner Tony Shek said later: "We heard nothing about it. The staff are often asked by family members if foods contain nuts. But nothing was mentioned to any staff yesterday."


http://www.independent.ie/irish-news...-29854519.html

Epipens can be very dangerous because the dosages can be lethal if messed up. If the pharmacist had no idea what her prescription was, what could he do?

"A member of the pharmacy profession in Dublin later told this newspaper that regulations prohibit the dispensing of epipen injections without a prescription.

It is classed as an 'S1B' drug containing adrenaline and has the potential to do harm. Pharmacists are not allowed to give the injection."

I'm Irish, and I know this country has gone mad. Adrenaline has the fooking potential to do harm!! So has aspirin! So has alcohol, and cigarettes.
Fooking hell! This drug had the potential to save a life. And it was denied because of the remote possibility of doing fooking harm.

I'm furious about this.

I didn't know that, I was about to respond to the thread expressing shock that the pharmacy refused to help but that would make a lot of sense... what a tragedy though. Still, you should always be careful of what you eat if you have an allergy, seems a bit stupid to me, especially as there was a sign...

I bow to your knowledge. But, pharmacists are suppose to be equally as qualified as Doctors in the prescription of drugs, "Her mother told how she went around the corner to Hamilton Long chemist on O'Connell Street and desperately asked for an epipen injection to bring to her daughter outside."
The pharmacist should have seen her need for the drug, because he was qualified to do so.

He failed to do it because he was terrified of litigation in this mad litigious world.

Heartbreaking story.I understand the difficult position the pharmacist was in but if I saw someone dying in front of me I think i would have left the epipen on the counter and told the mother "here is the epipen your daughter needs...legally I can not give it to you without prescription" and would have turned my back .The pharmacist could easily made a call to the chemist she usually gets her prescription filled or her GP to find out what dosage she needed or I am sure her mother would have known the dosage.

To be honest, I am shocked that nobody in the family knew that satay sauce is peanut based.
If your child has an allergy, you really should look into it in depth.
Not carrying her pen was a mistake as well.
Terrible to lose a child and my heart goes out to them.

Yes he could have. Given it to her mother. The pharmacists have been terrified HERE, Ireland, by the regulatory authority. I know, my brother in law, a pharmacist, has his every move watched, by the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO. They're terrified of giving drugs which require prescriptions to people without them. It's all very controlled. Pharmacy in Ireland is very controlled, and expensive, btw.

..I know that you have to have epipen training to be able to administer it but her mum would have known the dosage she needed, I would have thought...so she would have been able to tell the pharmacist and it was an emergency situation...?..

It's not really fair to blame the pharmacist - the mother burst in, in a panic, asking for an epipen - if they're not allowed to dish things out without a prescription then he/she was just doing their job. I'm a bit shocked they didn't have the girl's epipen with them, that's pretty complacent... :/

No, don't agree. Pharmacists here in Ireland are paid as much as Doctors. They have equal responsibility.

"My daughter died on a street corner with a crowd around her. How could a peanut kill my child?"


Tragic
but this does happen around the world

I don't really think a person's salary dictates how much they can break the rules of their job description... from an emotional point of view, I can't believe a pharmacist wouldn't hand over an epipen to help a dying person; but as it's an exact science how much medication is needed in any given epipen for any individual, the pharmacist wouldn't necessarily have had the dosage needed just waiting by the counter in some kind of "here's one I made earlier" situation. Any time I go to the pharmacy for some medication, I have to wait half an hour to get my medication - I don't know why that is but I don't think it's because they like to make people wait. Maybe the pharmacist didn't have what they needed. Maybe the mother wasn't making sense. Maybe the girl died before the pharmacist could have realistically provided anything for her. I don't know.

I know a mother who has two children who have the same allergy here in Ireland.Whilst out shopping late friday evening two weeks ago and had her handbag which contained the epipens stolen.

As her GP was not going to reopen untill the monday morning she faced the weekend with out her childrens epipens.She went into a chemist ,told the pharmacist the situation he inturn phoned her regular pharmacist who emailed through her kids prescription history.He gave her the epipen and asked her to bring in the prescription from her GP on the monday,which she did.

Wonderful. It doesn't really cover forgetting your meds and being in an emergency situation

My brother in law is a pharmacist. My niece is too. She's irrelevant.
My brother in law use to be lax about prescription drugs. Antibiotics and painkillers. Solpaeine.

He was a good lad, benevolent.

Don't know what to say. On the other hand if the pharmacist had given it to her and it turned out to be a factor on her dying, the pharmacist would be on trial. difficult situation but RIP.

I think the pharmacist has a case to face for not performing his duty.
Pharmacists are not suppose to be just shopkeepers, they are suppose to be medical professionals, who perform a medical service.

Not just money for old rope.

I'm very angry that a pharmacist denied live-saving treatment to a human being.

Difficult situation for the pharmacist, however I think he could have done a bit more, at least try and find out the dosage or where her regular prescription was fulfilled or dialled 999, why let them walk to A and E? The mother was obviously in a panic and not thinking straight, but letting her walk out of his shop was really horrendous of him.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news...-29857224.html
It seems that pharmacists are allowed to provide prescription only meds in an emergency situation since 2003.

Scotland seem to have the right idea.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/health/...ment-1-3038842

Oh well in that case it looks like he was being a lazy bastard.

As a consumer within the Irish system I have noticed a sharp clamp=down on the administration of drugs.
The pharmaceutical business in Ireland is a rip off. It's theft. It still is.
When you try to buy a prescription medicine, made in India, the IMO will steal it from your post

This is tragic but a few things are utterly baffling me... For one, most people with a nut allergy wouldn't leave the house without an epi pen because they can be in ANYTHING via cross contamination. Secondly, not having one at a Chinese meal, a type of food which very often contains nuts... And thirdly, having a family member with nut allergy and not knowing roughly which goods contain nuts? Satay sauce doesn't just have nuts in it - it is BASED on peanuts. She might has well have chomped down a tub of peanut butter.

This is a terrible tragedy for any family to endure but there's a lesson in it for anyone with a food allergy, or who has a family member with a food allergy. You need to make sure that you ARE prepared, and also educated on where the dangers lie. Satay sauce would be right at the top of a nut allergy sufferers "avoid" list.

I've heard of peanut allergies before, but I never thought it was that serious.

It's a really sad story, shame that it took this for the mom the realise that she should have been carrying around this injection all along. And again it was pretty reckless to overlook the -this product contains nuts - warning.

Hopefully people and children who get diagnosed with this in the future will be better informed.