Former CVS pharmacist: Understaffing causing medication errors

By Danielle Zulkosky

Click here for updates on this story

    INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A former Indianapolis CVS (Consumer Value Stores) employee says understaffing is causing frequent medication mistakes at a near north side store location.

Katie Forbes is a doctor of Pharmacy. She said while the pharmacy remains understaffed dangerous mistakes will continue to happen.

Forbes also told News 8 about the toxic work culture at the 16th Street and North Meridian Street store.

“It’s the worst place you could ever work,” Forbes said.

Forbes left CVS after she said there were unsafe staffing levels that led to frequent medication mistakes. She reported many of the issues she identified to the Indiana Board of Pharmacy. She said she felt intimidation from management over her choice to speak up.

After leaving CVS, Forbes started telling her story online on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.

“Medication errors are out of control at every pharmacy. It’s not just an isolated incident,” Forbes said. “Patients are getting the wrong medications, they’re getting other people’s meds, and I just don’t know how CVS has gotten away with this for so long.”

Forbes worked at a 24-hour location just two blocks away from Methodist Hospital.

She said there was only ever one pharmacist on shift at a time. They were often supported by two or three technicians. Forbes said that at a pharmacy as busy as this, multiple pharmacists would have been appropriate.

“The purposeful understaffing. They keep perpetuating this issue that there’s a staffing issue, there’s a pharmacist shortage, there’s a technician shortage. There’s no shortage,” Forbes said. “There’s no shortage at all. We have enough technicians. We have enough pharmacists. They’re not allowing us the hours.”

Forbes said this caused frequent prescription backups.

“It would just be me running everything: Pick up, drop off, walk in vaccines, filling, verifying, everything, Forbes said. “We had thousands of prescriptions behind.”

This CVS store was cited by the Indiana Board of Pharmacy for expired medications, loose pills, and dirty shelves. The store was not cited by the board for its staffing levels.

“I was there for the visit, and they pulled me aside and said, ‘Hey, I’m just going to let you know that we can’t interfere with business,’ and that’s the exact terminology he used,” Forbes said. “And that’s kind of insane because, to my understanding, the (Indiana) Board of Pharmacy’s responsibility is to protect the public.”

Forbes said trusting CVS with a prescription could be dangerous.

“Absolutely. I would not recommend picking up scrips at CVS,” Forbes said. “You don’t know if you’re getting the right pills in the bottle, you don’t know if it’s somebody else’s drug, you don’t know if it’s been mislabeled, you don’t know if you’re missing some.”

CVS provided News 8 with this statement.

“The Indiana Board of Pharmacy placed Store #6549 on a corrective action plan in September 2023 for matters such as dusty shelves, loose pills, and expired medications. We took immediate action per the Board’s feedback and passed the next inspection 30 days later.

We’re committed to ensuring there are appropriate levels of staffing and resources at our pharmacies and have made targeted investments, including enabling teams to schedule additional support as needed, enhancing pharmacist and technician recruitment and hiring, and strengthening pharmacy technician training. Our Indianapolis pharmacies are well-positioned to provide safe, high-quality pharmacy care to our patients.”

News 8 reached out to the Indiana Board of Pharmacy, but has not yet gotten a response about this situation.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.