ERROR IN HOSPITAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 198, 22 July 1937, Page 13

ERROR IN HOSPITAL.

COMMISSION’S FINDING. The Royal Commission which investigated the affairs of the Napier Hospital in its report states that it considered that the house surgeon committed an error of judgment when the wrong injection was given to a patient who suffered serious consequences, for which he subsequently received financial compensation, The Commission, in the course of its inquired into the circumstances in which, in July, 1931, a patient'of the hospital, Mr 8. J. Montgomery, was, prior to examination by X-ray, given an injection of a chemical preparation known as neo-hydriol and suffered untoward effects from such injection. It is usually necessary, says the report, for X-ray examination of the kidneys that preliminary use of a drug should be made for the purpose of making the kidney more opaque and visible in the X-ray photograph. A great number of drugs made by various competing manufacturing chemists are supplied for this purpose under various names. Some of these drugs are suitable for injection mko a v-ein and others are not suitable for this method of administration but are given by injection into cavities. It . had apparently been the practice in the Napier Hospital to use perabrodil, which can be injected into a vein. In the case under. review, the nurse brought to the house surgeon a tray on which was a bottle of n ®°" hvdriol, which is quite unsuitable tor injection into a vein. The house surgeon, faced with this situation, doubted if what was supplied him was suitable for injection into a vein, but after hesitation, injected the neohydriol into a vein in. the patient s arm, with immediate serious consequences. As a result, Mr Montgomery suflered considerably, for which he received financial compensation. He now presents no serious after-effects. Such drugs as perabrodil and neohydriol should not have been kept in tho ward medicine cupboard, concludes the report. These drugs, and ; other dangerous drugs, are now kept in the hospital dispensary and better safeguarded in various ways, so that a recurrence of this unfortunate mistake is now well-nigh impossible, the, house surgeon committed an error or judgment in making tho injection.