Health Law

Wrong Medicine In This Case

The family of a Pennsylvania woman, Sandra Koch,  has been awarded  1.6 million dollars by a Superior Court jury because she was given the wrong heart medicine.

According to the lawsuit, she had been admitted to Christiana Hospital on July 23, 2003 to be treated for atrial fibrillation, an irregular heart beat.  During her stay she was prescribed Sotalol twice daily.  The drug is used to maintain a regular heart beat in those who have a ventricular heart rhythm disorder.  Also named in the lawsuit were Drs. Lewis and Boyle doctors at Cardiology Consultants, P.A.

Koch also had kidney problems and was receiving dialysis every 3 days.  Sotalol is excreted by the kidneys and, in her case, was building up in her body.  In addition she was receiving  a dosage that was four  times what was appropriate for someone in her condition.  She was receiving 80 milligrams twice daily and that dosage was continued after her discharge.

Four days after discharge she collapsed while eating at a restaurant.  She was pronounced dead at Christiana Hospital.  Timothy Lengkeek, the family attorney, said that doctors should not have given the dosage of Sotalol knowing  she had renal impairment.

"The drug is excreted from the body by the kidneys and if the kidneys don't work and you are only getting dialysis every third day, the drug can build up in the body and cause a fatal heart arrhythmia, which is what she had kill her six days after she started the drug," Lengkeek said. "There was overwhelming evidence that you don't use this drug in this particular patient when there are other alternatives that were available that would have done the same thing."

Full post as published by Cerebral Palsy Law Blog on June 23, 2008 (boomark / email).