4 replies to this topic

[NawlinsGirl]

THIS IS A TRADEGY :

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A 69-year-old woman who was accidentally injected with a toxic cleaning fluid as she was prepared for surgery at a Seattle area medical center has died as a result, hospital officials said on Wednesday.
Doctors had worked intensively to save the woman since she was mistakenly injected with the solution on Nov. 4, a spokeswoman for Virginia Mason Medical Center said, but were unable to save her.


McClinton was supposed to be injected with a contrast dye to assist in a radiology procedure, but instead was accidentally given a cleansing fluid typically used to prepare the exterior of the body for surgery. Both are clear liquids. The spokeswoman said policies at the hospital had been changed so that the cleansing solution would not be mistaken for the dye again.

[mattsmom]

This is so terrible! I hear that the table was set up by and for techs (who also give the dye) and the solutions there looked similar, and were UNLABELED. Recipe for disaster. No nurse was involved, thank God.

I feel so badly for this patient and her family.

[LNDRN@RRMC]

Yikes...where is the accountability. Techs are not to dispense meds of any kind. The poor family. God bless them!

[mattsmom]

Sadly, I have encountered many techs in radiology who DO give the dyes.I figure the accountability goes right to the radiologist whose license they are working under, IMO, as well as the administration that allows an unlicensed tech to give an IV med.. (just like the office help, these techs are likely under the radiologists' license)

[firefly49]

Labeling is very,very important.i know of a case in which an oral cleanser on the sterile field was injected instead of the constrast dye. I think chlorhexadine was the cleanser. this poor patient didn't die immediatly, only after a long week in an icu with total organ failure.ALWAYS LABEL!