VietNamNet Bridge – Three hospital staff members in the southern province of Dong Nai were suspended from work on Monday after selling expired medicines to a patient last week.

A prescription shows three types of medicine prescribed for a patient on May 16 at the Central Mental Hospital 2 in the southern province of Dong Nai. One of them was discovered to have expired a month ago. — VNA/VNS Photo Le Xuan

Some expired 800 tablets of Encorate (an anticonvulsant used to control seizures and migraine headaches) were confiscated following the incident.

On May 16, a woman bought three types of medicine (60 tablets each) from a pharmacy at the Central Mental Hospital 2 in Bien Hoa City for her daughter, as prescribed by a hospital’s doctor, including Encorate 200mg, Magnensi B6 and Nootripam 400mg.

Later on, while getting the medicines for the daughter at home, she discovered that the 60 Encorate tablets had expired a month ago, on April 9, and reported it to the hospital.

A team consisting of local investigators and the hospital’s authorities was formed to conduct an inspection on the pharmacy.

Apart from the expired Encorate tablets that had already been sold, the team discovered and confiscated a container of 3,000 tablets of the same type that were also past expiration.

The hospital has invited all patients that received expired medicine in the past month to come for further health checkups, said Dr Nguyen Van Dung, acting director of the hospital.

“We have reported the incident to the Ministry of Health and are awaiting further instructions,” he said.

Source: VNS