Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2000 | 11:11 a.m.
A Las Vegas pharmacist today took "full responsibility" for filling a prescription that led to the death of a 64-year-old Texas woman visiting her daughter in Las Vegas last year.
Veneda Cook of Pittsburg, Texas, died Oct. 22, 1999 -- two days before her 65th birthday -- of a brain hemorrhage that authorities said was caused by her taking a dosage of a blood-thinning medicine that had been erroneously doubled by a Las Vegas pharmacist.
The Nevada State Board of Pharmacy today accepted a stipulation reached by the pharmacy Rite-Aid, the pharmacist and the board's legal staff that the error had been made. The board was still determining what penalties to take such as fines, suspension and others.
In a tear-filled statement, Leona Sopko, managing pharmacist of the Rite-Aid at 525 Windmill Lane, where Cook got the prescription for the drug Coumadin, said "I am really devastated by (Cook's) death and her family's loss. ... I wish I could go back in time. ...
"I know I made a mistake. I accept full responsibility," said Sopko, who got her pharmacy license in the Philippines and worked there and in Florida before coming to Las Vegas in 1996.
"What happened to Ms. Cook will stay with me the rest of my life."
Louis Ling, general counsel for the pharmacy, said Sopko "is a good pharmacist who got involved in a bad situation."
Cook's daughter Mary Hosea, also fighting back tears, said her mother who would have turned 66 Tuesday, was "looking forward to retirement ... and seeing her granddaughter graduate. She was not there that day.
"In my opinion one error like this is too many. My family has paid the ultimate price." The case is also in civil litigation.
On Oct. 5, 1999, Cook was prescribed 5-milligram pills of Coumadin while her prescription called for 2.5-milligram tablets. The substitution was made because the pharmacy did not have the smaller dosage, the board was told.
Cook's prescribed dosage was 3.75 milligrams per day or 1 1/2 pills. When she took 1 1/2 pills of the larger dosage she was taking 7.5 milligrams.
She was taken to Desert Springs Hospital on Oct. 21 comatose and died the next day.
This is only the second death the pharmacy board has investigated. The other was in the 1980s.
archive
