Jul 8, 2008 2:00 pm US/Eastern
Heparin Overdose Given To 14 Texas Preemies
Last Year Actor Dennis Quaid's Twins Were Given Near-Fatal Dose Of Same Drug
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (CBS) ―
A Corpus Christi hospital says 14 babies in its neonatal intensive care unit received overdoses of the pediatric version of the blood thinner Heparin.
Christus Spohn Hospital South CEO Bruce Holstein says the error in the dosage of the medicine - used to flush intravenous lines to prevent blood clots from forming - was discovered Sunday night by hospital nurses. He says the nurses noticed abnormalities in lab tests.
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reports the hospital discontinued using Heparin immediately and gave newborns who needed it different medications.
It was unclear how much over the recommended dose was given to the 14 patients. Holstein says there's a standard dose for newborns.
Pharmacy operations were halted temporarily Monday. He said the error was believed to have happened in the pharmacy when the medicine was mixed.
Officials said two babies have been released since the discovery was made and the others are being monitored carefully. Holstein said the babies' reactions to the overdoses varied, and he did not know details about effects.
Holstein said hospital staff would report the incident to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, an independent, nonprofit agency that accredits and certifies more than 15,000 hospitals in the United States.
In November 2007, actor Dennis Quaid's newborn twins were at the center of a near-fatal drug mix-up in which they were administered 1,000 times the normal dose of Heparin.
"We all have this inherent thing that we trust doctors and nurses, that they know what they're doing. But this mistake occurred right under our noses, that the nurse didn't bother to look at the dosage on the bottle," Quaid told 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft in a March interview. "It was 10 units that our kids are supposed to get. They got 10,000. And what it did is, it basically turned their blood to the consistency of water, where they had a complete inability to clot. And they were basically bleeding out at that point."
Quaid's children recovered, and he has since testified before Congress in an effort to draw attention to what is one of the leading causes of death in America - preventable human, medical error.
"These mistakes that occurred to us are not unique," he told Kroft.They happen in every hospital, in every state in this country. And 100,000 people, that I've come to find out, there's 100,000 people a year are killed every year in hospitals by a medical mistakes."
The same avoidable mistake had occurred a year earlier at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. Six infants were given multiple adult doses of Heparin instead of the pediatric version; three of the infants survived, three did not.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
