Intravenous connection error
A settlement has been reached between an Idaho Falls hospital and the family of a 73-year-old woman who had sued the hospital over her death on May 21, 2003.
She was taken to the hospital May 12 after collapsing at her home. Doctors at the hospital determined a brain hemorrhage. The patient had a catheter placed in her head to drain excess fluid from her brain.
On May 14, a nurse found that the patient had decreased consciousness and discovered that medications that should have been injected through an intravenous line were instead connected to the tube that drained fluid from her brain. Her health then declined to where she had to be connected to a ventilator. She died a week later.
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This has happened in the UK also
Should there be a call from IV Nurses to ask manufacturers again about use of universal joints that allow IV medication to be givem through VP shunts, arterial lines, enteral feeding lines and epidurals?
I believe that each piece of kit should have a dedicated connector, to reduce the risk. ie. a round peg into a round hole and a square peg into a square one!