Nursing Student's Error Leads to Baby's Death

Friday, September 14, 2007

By Marlon Ramos
Southern Luzon Bureau
Last updated 07:48pm (Mla time) 03/13/2007

CAMP VICENTE LIM, Laguna, Philippines -- A one-year-old boy died last week in a hospital in Batangas City after a nursing student inadvertently injected him with a chemical compound meant to be infused through an intravenous drip, a hospital official said Tuesday.

Dr. Renato Dimayuga, Batangas Regional Hospital director, said victim John Jesreel Halcon died of cardiac arrest shortly after the 22-year-old nursing student wrongfully injected him with potassium chloride at around 5 p.m. last Thursday.

The medicine, he said, was meant to help patients suffering from dehydration.

"It was an accident. The student nurse accidentally injected the victim with the medicine. But we're still investigating what actually happened," Dimayuga told the Philippine Daily Inquirer over the mobile phone.

"This is really unfortunate."

Dimayuga denied reports that the hospital tried to conceal the truth about the death of the baby. He said he had formed a team of hospital officials to look into the incident.

"This incident is already in the police blotter," he said.

He said the victim's parents brought the baby to the hospital on Wednesday afternoon. He said the baby was then diagnosed with acute gastroenteritis and moderate dehydration.

The baby, who was admitted to the charity ward, was immediately given with dextrose.

The victim was the second child of a couple who reside in the village of Cuta, Batangas City.

Asked if student nurses were allowed to inject medicines on the patients, he said they were not.

"That's what we're trying to find out. Nursing students are not supposed to inject medicines into the patients," he said.

He noted that the nurse assigned to look after the victim was also tasked to take care of 40 other patients.

Dimayuga said they tried to talk with the nursing student, whom he declined to identify, to ask him why he injected the medicine to the victim.

He said he had not spoken with the student who had been suffering emotional anguish since the baby’s death. He said only the student's parents were communicating with them.

"His parents said the student had been crying since last week. Parang nag-nervous breakdown na daw yung bata [The kid was apparently suffering from nervous breakdown]," he said.Source:inquirer.net

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