WRONG BLOOD TRANSFUSION

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27226, 18 December 1953, Page 7

WRONG BLOOD TRANSFUSION

WANGANUI WOMAN’S DEATH MEDICAL EVIDENCE AT INQUEST (New Zealand Press Association) WANGANUI. December 17. When a blood transfusion was found necessary for Mrs Lorrayn McKay, aged 27, after she had undergone an operation in the Wanganui Public Hospital on September 23, she was given blood of a wrong type. As a result of tms she died a lew days later. At an inquest in Wanganui today, the District Coroner (Mr F. Forsythe) said this was one of the most distressing cases with which he had ever been faced. He found that Mrs Mac Kay died on October 1 from uraemia result-* ing from an incompatible blood transfusion.

Mrs McKay was the wife of John Lindsay McKay, a contractor, of 61 No. 3 Line, Wanganui, and was the mother of two children, aged five and seven years. All the medical witnesses questioned by the Coroner said there was no known injection or drug that would counteract the effect of anti-bodies introduced by the administration of a wrong blood transfusion. Dr. D. B. Noble, who performed an operation on Mrs McKay, said the operation was uneventful and successful, and the patient left the theatre in excellent condition. Dr. L. Sefton said he had performed an autopsy on the body of Mrs McKay. Subsequently, he suspected that she had been given blood of the wrong group. Subsequent investigations conrirmed this suspicion. The patient’s blood group in this case was B rhesus negative, not rhesus positive, as found by the laboratory assistant. Rhesus anti-bodies were present in the serum. “Hazard Often inevitable” “Failure to detect anti-bodies of this nature is a hazard which is often inevitable when a blood transfusion is required urgently,” said Dr. Sefton. He agreed that the presence in the blood stream of intradex, which he said was a substitute for blood, tended to make the grouping even more difficult. Muriel Homes Burtt, a laboratory assistant, said she had taken a blood sample to establish Mrs McKay’s group. The patient was in a state of collapse when she took the blood, and she had only a small quantity on which to work. She spent an hour making the necessary tests in the laboratory. “In fairness to the hospital staff. I should that I think this lady did get proper attention throughout the night before her death,” said the Coroner. However, he thought some improvement should be made in the system of typing blood for transfusions. Though she had no degree, he was assured that Miss Burtt had had extensive hospital training, but he did not think the responsibility for blood grouping should be left entirely in the hands of one young person. Blood groups should be checked and double-checked before transfusions, said the coroner.