Pharmacist ‘didn’t know allergy jab was for a child’

A pharmacist who refused to dispense an EpiPen adrenalin injector without prescription to the mother of a teenager who later died from an allergic reaction told an inquest the “dynamic” would have been different if he had known it was for her daughter.

David Murphy told Dublin Coroner’s Court that when the mother of 14-year-old Emma Sloan came into Hamilton Long Pharmacy on O’Connell Street on December 18, 2013, to request the pen – an adrenalin shot which reverses the effects of anaphylactic shock – he was not told it was for her daughter, Emma.

“It would have changed the dynamic because I would have been able to ask different questions. I didn’t think I could verify a medical history if the person was a non-relative and if the person wasn’t there it was very difficult to make a clinical assessment,” he said.

Emma’s mother Caroline Sloan, from Drimnagh, Dublin 12, said she told pharmacy staff the EpiPen was for her daughter.

Emma became ill having mistakenly eaten satay sauce at a city-centre Chinese buffet restaurant..

The pharmacist “dismissed” her and told her to go to A&E, she testified.

Ms Sloan went to get the car, leaving Emma with her aunt but when she returned minutes later her daughter had collapsed.

Emma was pronounced dead shortly after arrival at Temple Street. The pathologist gave the cause of death as acute anaphylactic shock secondary to a nut allergy..

Emma was diagnosed with a nut allergy aged 5. She was hospitalised three times and was treated with an EpiPen each time. Ms Sloan said . “We were never told she could die from this or that we should be carrying an EpiPen at all times.”

Coroner Brian Farrell returned a verdict of death by misadventure and recommended people with allergies be given “some sort of objective evidence” to show third parties in emergencies.