giant cell arteritis<\/a> illness. The side effects were almost immediate, the family said. <\/p>\n\u201cHe was bright red,\u201d Terangi said. His face and body were swollen with fluid, his torso blotched with rashes, and his weight climbed rapidly despite a lifetime of staying between 55 and 65kg. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s never, ever been that big,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
His breathing deteriorated so dramatically that he sought help twice, but each time, specialists sent him home, assuring him the steroid treatment and dosage were appropriate, Terangi said.<\/p>\n
What the family didn\u2019t know was that for at least nine days \u2013 possibly weeks more \u2013 George had been unknowingly taking quadruple the prescribed dose. <\/p>\n
Ruby said the mistake only came to light after George died. When she opened the bottle that had been dispensed nine days earlier, she immediately noticed the tablets had a 20 stamped on them. <\/p>\n
Fearing that meant the wrong strength, she and her mother went to the Okara Park Countdown supermarket Pharmacy on February 16, 2023. The manager confirmed the error and apologised. He immediately informed the Pharmacy Defence Association, the pharmacy directors, the Countdown Pharmacy support office, and held a team meeting. <\/p>\n
The family believe earlier bottles may also have been incorrectly filled. They claim the manager told Ruby and Terangi he could not understand how the mistake happened, given the counting process and that the 5mg pills would have been white, not bright pink. <\/p>\n
George \u2013 a tradesman with an eye for detail \u2013 would almost certainly have noticed if white pills suddenly switched to fluorescent pink ones. However, there was no way to check, as those bottles had long been discarded.<\/p>\n
Taking what he thought were 10 5mg tablets each morning, George was likely swallowing 200mg daily for the first two days. He then reduced his dosage as instructed by his doctor, but because of the dispensing error, he was likely to still be taking four times too much \u2013 potentially up to 160mg daily.<\/p>\n
This happened because the pharmacy had issued 20mg tablets instead of the prescribed 5mg tablets, despite the label correctly stating 5mg for his prescription.<\/p>\n
![\"Countdown]()
Countdown Okara Park’s pharmacy mistakenly gave Brian Fryer prednisone tablets four times stronger than those prescribed by his doctor.<\/p>\n
The family waited nearly three years for the HDC report, expecting a full, boots-on-the-ground investigation; but have instead discovered it relied only on written submissions \u2013 seeking responses to the family\u2019s complaints from medical professionals. <\/p>\n
For example, submissions from Health NZ Te Whatu Ora Te Tai Tokerau sought to assure the wh\u0101nau that prednisone does not cause an acute overdose illness and therefore was not a possible cause for George having a cardiac arrest. <\/p>\n
The Fryers, however, point to numerous medical articles online that say otherwise. They felt they never stood a chance of being believed, and in their opinion, the report was \u201cessentially just a cover-up\u201d.<\/p>\n
Daughter Ruby said she simply wants justice for her dad \u2013 that she and her family feel aggrieved, unheard and dismissed. They feel someone should be held to account. The experience has left them distrustful of New Zealand\u2019s health system.<\/p>\n
The report\u2019s author, Deputy Health and Disability Commissioner Dr Vanessa Caldwell, accepted the pharmacy\u2019s explanation that no individual staff member was at fault; the error arose from a failure to check the item before bagging, and the pharmacy has since taken steps to prevent a recurrence.<\/p>\n
Contacted by the Advocate, the pharmacy manager echoed his earlier apologies. <\/p>\n
He confirmed he had been working out his notice at the time and has since moved to another local pharmacy. <\/p>\n
To her shock, Terangi recently encountered him while picking up a prescription from that store. <\/p>\n
\u201cI just went home and cried,\u201d she said. The family believed he should personally be held accountable to some degree. <\/p>\n
The HDC report did not apportion blame to any staff member and found no further action was necessary; Caldwell was satisfied with the pharmacy\u2019s new safeguards.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we have not received any further complaints regarding dispensing errors since these events, I consider that the process changes have improved the safety of their dispensing practices,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The family\u2019s complaints about George\u2019s hospital care were also dismissed by Caldwell, who found it was \u201cappropriate and responsive\u201d to his needs.<\/p>\n
Caldwell suggested the family were likely \u201coverwhelmed\u201d by the amount of information presented in a short time. However, she was pleased to see the hospital had reflected on this aspect of wh\u0101nau support and had offered to hold a hui with Takawaenga support. The family claimed this was the first and only time they had heard of it. <\/p>\n
Rather than being \u201coverwhelmed\u201d with information from the hospital, the family say there was a lack of it. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t know what they were doing,\u201d Ruby said.<\/p>\n
![\"George]()
George Fryer died despite being rushed to Whang\u0101rei Hospital by his wife Terangi.<\/p>\n
Caldwell apologised for the years-long delay in producing the report, citing an unprecedented rise in complaints.<\/p>\n
The decision, issued on October 10 last year without notification to the family, sat unseen in Terangi\u2019s inbox until December. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Mum read the email, she just broke down and called us in tears,\u201d daughter Ruby said.<\/p>\n
They were critical that the pharmacy wasn\u2019t asked to hand over video footage to identify a specific staff member responsible for the error and that no interviews were undertaken. <\/p>\n
They want to warn the public to be more vigilant in checking pharmacy-dispensed medications.<\/p>\n
The HDC noted its jurisdiction did not include determining the cause of death, which is a role for the coroner. <\/p>\n
Head of Woolworths Pharmacy, Jeremy Armes, said the company\u2019s thoughts were with the family. He understood the need for answers and closure. <\/p>\n
Armes said the company had complied fully with the investigation and implemented all recommended procedure changes across its network of 48 pharmacies. <\/p>\n
Earlier, Armes had told the HDC the company was planning to use the error as an anonymised case study at a training conference later this year to reinforce the importance of staff following standard operating procedures. Those updated procedures included the importance of a dispenser leaving the stock bottle next to the prescription so the pharmacist could check the dispensed medicine against the bottle and the prescription. <\/p>\n
Sarah Curtis is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, focusing on a wide range of issues. She has nearly 20 years\u2019 experience in journalism, most of which she spent court reporting in Gisborne and on the East Coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brian \u201cGeorge Fryer, 63, a father of four and grandfather to 16, died at Whang\u0101rei Hospital on November…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[30687,74,89,14645,87228,58631,9057,634,33452,6179,1054,19959,2109,61101,11424,2082,71,62821,11423,134,2862,156070,111,43,139,7805,69,5270,3194,3240,13181,1361,165,8229,1869],"class_list":["post-277597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-accept","tag-after","tag-attack","tag-beloved","tag-cannot","tag-commissioners","tag-dads","tag-death","tag-devastated","tag-died","tag-disability","tag-error","tag-family","tag-findings","tag-finds","tag-for","tag-from","tag-grieving","tag-hdc","tag-health","tag-heart","tag-liable","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-no","tag-nz","tag-one","tag-pharmacy","tag-recently","tag-released","tag-that","tag-their","tag-they","tag-whangrei"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}