Re: Br*n: (Ignoring Murphy's Law) kills

> Bruce Bostwick wrote:
> > Alberto Monteiro wrote:
 
> > Three days ago, a brazilian teenager was killed in hospital, because
> > instead of saline solution, the nurse gave her vaseline.

According to the translation (from below), it was a nursing assistant - point being that they are not highly trained, at least not in the US, and are more likely to make an error in such cases.  Two decades ago, only RNs and LPNs (and docs) administered IV fluids; drug orders were seen by at least one RN and a pharmacist before being filled -- now, it might only be an LPN and a pharmacy tech.  Sadly, I am not surprised that medication erors are so prevalent.

> > The reason was that the idiots that produced those products made
> > _identical_ vessels for them, with the difference being a minuscule
> > identification label.
<snip>

Damn stupid - whyever put what should _never_ be injected intravenously  inside an IV-capable bottle?!?  There have been similar mistakes made with different concentrations of drugs here (frex heparin, lidocaine and epinephrine) also resulting in bad outcomes/death. 
 
> Translation of the latter link (machine translation, but
> more or less intelligible):
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/2vxjxxn
> 
> Yes, those are pretty hard to tell apart.  Doesn't
> mean it's not at least doubly important to read the labels,
> but yes, that was probably going to happen sooner or later... :(
> 
> "The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr Brain has long
> since departed, hasn't he, Percy?" -- Edmund, Lord Blackadder

There's good reason for redundancy in critical operations, even if it isn't conducive to a higher profit margin.  ,:P

Debbi
Yes I'm Alive Maru