Hospital Error - Heparin Overdose to 14 Preemies At Christus Spohn

In yet another devastating episode of human error, as many as 14 premature babies in the neonatal intensive care unit of the Christus Spohn South Hospital in Texas were mistakenly administered an overdose Heparin, a blood thinner for pediatric use. While for one the nasty error proved fatal, others are reportedly recovering, hospital authorities revealed.

While acknowledging “something went terribly wrong", Christus Spohn’s CEO Bruce Holstein recalls that the error was discovered Sunday afternoon by hospital nurses upon noticing abnormalities in laboratory analysis.

Though the magnitude of the overdose the preemies received is still unclear, medically there’s a recommended ‘standard dose’ for newborns, health experts say.

Heparin, a widely used injectable anticoagulant prevents formulation of blood clots. However, in case of overdose ‘the blood would be more thin than it should be and then there would be an increased tendency to bleed," explained City-County Health Director Dr. William Burgin.

Now playing the blame game, the hospital management believes that mixing of medicines in the pharmacy lead to the error. Meanwhile, to take a closer look in the issue, pharmacy operations were halted temporarily on Monday.

While each babies’ reaction to the overdose varied to different extents of adverse effects, according to the official release, two babies have been reported discharged after recovery, while the others are being monitored closely.

Preventable, medical errors – one of the leading cause of death in America – accounts for as high as 1,00,000 unnecessary deaths and 1,000,000 excess injuries each year.