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Patient Given an Overdose While in a Hospital

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  • 11-06-2012, 07:12 AM
    justme2day
    Patient Given an Overdose While in a Hospital
    My question involves medical malpractice in the state of: NJ
    How can a Hospital/Nurse not be held accountable for giving a patient an overdose of medication? The patient received the ENTIRE bag in minutes instead of a drip over hours! The drug was Argatroban a blood thinner(rat poison). I am being told that since the patient entered the hospital sick(I thought we all went to the hospital sick?) that it would be hard to prove it was the overdose that killed him! If the patient was that sick, wouldn't it give the hospital/care takers more of a responsibility NOT to do something like this? It seems to me that if you present yourself to a hospital with any condition, they can do whatever they want to you and blame it on the condition?? Just doesn't seem right or fair?
  • 11-06-2012, 07:22 AM
    Disagreeable
    Re: Can Someone Please Help Me Understand
    Medicine is called a practice, because many times it is not definitive. Argatrobin is an anti clotting agent. It appears the individual you reference had a condition which manifested results that paralleled side effects of this medication. As the processes of the body are not consistent, it appears there is not a way to distinguish damage present, with what may have been exacerbated by this situation. I suggest for your own piece of mind, you run this by a med-mal attorney. I'm sorry for your loss.
  • 11-06-2012, 07:24 AM
    Dogmatique
    Re: Can Someone Please Help Me Understand
    You're who in this situation?
  • 11-06-2012, 07:36 AM
    eerelations
    Re: Can Someone Please Help Me Understand
    Quote:

    Quoting Dogmatique
    View Post
    You're who in this situation?

    Well, obviously not the patient...

    Agree though, it would help us to know the OP's role in this situation. Also OP, what's this "rat poison" reference?
  • 11-06-2012, 07:37 AM
    Disagreeable
    Re: Can Someone Please Help Me Understand
    Quote:

    Quoting eerelations
    View Post
    Well, obviously not the patient...

    Agree though, it would help us to know the OP's role in this situation. Also OP, what's this "rat poison" reference?

    Rat poisons are anti clotting agents that cause the rats to hemorrhage to death.
  • 11-06-2012, 09:26 AM
    justme2day
    Re: Can Someone Please Help Me Understand
    Hi....I am the spouse of the late patient. Also was told an ingredient of blood thinners is rat poison? Not sure if this is true but regardless an overdose of anything can't be good!
  • 11-06-2012, 09:29 AM
    Dogmatique
    Re: Can Someone Please Help Me Understand
    Take your late spouse's medical records to a local med-mal attorney who can guide you further.

    Forget "rat poison".

    Really.
  • 11-06-2012, 10:06 AM
    Mr. Knowitall
    Re: Can Someone Please Help Me Understand
    As Dogmatique suggests, if you want a meaningful analysis you need to have the medical records reviewed by a malpractice firm - but it sounds like you've done that. If you want to share more information here, somebody may be able to provide greater insight, but without a time line and information about the reason for hospitalization and cause of death we have nothing to work with.

    Argatroban is a blood thinner with a short half-life. The reasonable inference from the small amount of information you have shared is that the lawyers you've consulted so far, and the doctors and nurses they work with in analyzing medical malpractice cases, have not been able to find a causal connection between the overdose and your husband's unfortunate death.
  • 11-06-2012, 05:43 PM
    justme2day
    Re: Can Someone Please Help Me Understand
    Yes, you are correct I did seek a med mal attorney. They had his records for over a year. I just received them back with a letter stating they would not be pursuing the case. I was told simply because my husband was very sick when he entered the hospital. That makes sense to me, and had he passed away within the 1st couple of days when vented or in ICU this wouldn't be an issue. He had just been diagnosed with COPD a month prior to his death in the very same hospital! Also had a history of 7 different back surgeries and a spinal stimulator and problems associated with that.
    What bothers me is within 3 days he was down graded to PCU and breathing fine. He was getting better doing therapy with out oxygen, eating fine, up talking and joking and all the nurses were talking about him coming home, hospital even ordered home equip that was delivered! Then on the 7th day he was overdosed! This is everything changed and I saw him go downhill! He started having stroke like symptoms and going downhill very fast. By the 10th day he acquired pneumonia and was back in ICU and had to be vented again. For the next 11 days I had to just watch him slowly dying and suffering. The hospital would not acknowledge that the overdose was the reason for his deteriorating condition. By day 21 they said he died from ARDS & Pneumonia.

    Argatroban overdose side effects from Glaxo smith website states very serious side effects, many that my husband experienced. But back to my original question....doesn't the hospital have some responsibility to their patients not to do something like this, regardless if they are "sick" or not? I was told by Nursing Director that the nurse who did this would not work in the hospital again, but how could I know that or find out if she received any discipline for this? Putting an IV in a patient should be Nurse 101 I would think!
  • 11-06-2012, 06:26 PM
    Mr. Knowitall
    Re: Can Someone Please Help Me Understand
    Of course the hospital has a responsibility not to administer drugs inappropriately. But correlation is not causation, and if no medical expert will connect the overdose with the subsequent pneumonia and ARDS the law firm can't build a case.
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