WATCH ABOVE: Women in Alberta who get their birth control pills at Shoppers Drug Mart are being urged to check the expiry date.
EDMONTON — Shoppers Drug Mart is urging women in Alberta to check the expiry date on their birth control medication as it may be expired.
The retailer said it dispensed the expired drug Alesse 21 to about 100 women in Western Canada between March 16 and April 1, 2015.
“It was first brought to our attention by a patient on April 1,” said Ashesh Desai, Senior VP of Pharmacy Operations for Shoppers Drug Mart. “Having said that, we do have protocols in place and unfortunately protocols were not followed because the product was actually shipped out of our distribution centre earlier on in March.”
The pharmacy says human error at its distribution centre in Calgary resulted in incorrect data entry to the inventory system, and then the expired product was shipped to stores.
“As soon as the patient brought it to our attention we immediately reacted and contacted any potential patients that may have received the expired medication,” added Desai.
Shoppers says it has contacted everyone who was given expired product in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba and has offered to replace the product and provided information and counselling. The company says it has connected with those who were given expired product in those three provinces.
It reached out to more than 700 women across the four provinces to notify them about the expired pills.
“The product was expired and the patient should not have received it and we should not have expensed it,” said Desai.
“We’re going through a deep dive process right now to really understand what went wrong, why it went wrong and how we can prevent it from happening again.”
“However, our first priority is getting in touch with our patients and making sure they get the advice that they need … They should contact their pharmacist and get in to see their pharmacists immediately and then the pharmacist can provide them the appropriate guidance and advice,” said Desai.
Here is a list of stores in Alberta that may have dispensed the expired Alesse 21:
Click here for more information.
Pfizer Canada released a statement Tuesday:
“Shoppers Drug Mart informed Pfizer Canada on April 2 that a number of patients in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were dispensed expired birth control medication Alesse 21 between March 16 and April 1, 2015.
Shoppers has advised us that, as soon as they became aware that expired Alesse 21 had been dispensed, they called each of the approximately 100 potentially affected patients and informed them of the error, offered to immediately replace the expired product and provided information and counselling.
Shoppers also issued a statement on April 6.
Shoppers has advised us that human error at its distribution centre in Calgary resulted in an incorrect data entry to the inventory system. Expired product was then shipped by Shoppers to stores in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba and dispensed to patients.
If a Pfizer product is expired, we do not recommend using it.
We appreciate that Shoppers quickly informed Pfizer of the issue and took immediate corrective measures. Consumers calling Pfizer should be referred to their Shopper Drug Mart pharmacy for further information on the situation.
Should a consumer have a question of a medical nature on Alesse, they can be referred to Pfizer Medical Information at 1-800-463-6001.”
With files from Global News
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