Personal Injury Law

Child Dies Following Medication Error

By Steven M. Levin and John J. Perconti

The Seattle PI reported this week and a tragic medical mistake that took the life of a young infant at a local Children?s Hospital.

On September 17th a young infant girl was being transported in the hospital in preparation for a transplant. However, for reasons that staff members still claim not to understand, a hospital employee administered a drug to the infant without doctor permission. The infant died shortly after receiving the medication.

The infant death was only the latest in a string of mistakes at this particular hospital. An adult patient recently fell severely ill after staff members wrongly administered medication. He had entered the facility with life-threatening respiratory distress. An 8-month old girl died at the hospital after inexplicably being given ten times the prescribed does of calcium chloride. On top of that, a year and half ago another patient, an autistic teenage boy, was killed after being given a lethal dose of painkiller by hospital staff. The teenager was prescribed a fentanyl patch which is typically only used for cancer patients or people with narcotics tolerances.

After the string of errors the state Department of Health has launched an investigation into the hospital, reviewing systematic procedures and processes that may have contributed to the medical mistakes.

Our Chicago medical malpractice attorneys at Levin & Perconti understand the devastation caused when a medical mistake takes the life of a young child. There is simply no amount of compensation that can recover the losses sustained following these tragic incidents. Nonetheless, we have worked for decades to help preserve the legal rights of families following these errors.

A big reason for the need to honor legal rights and obligations is to ensure that the negligent facility takes appropriate steps to prevent the possibility of the harm occurring in the future. As this case demonstrates, often a single facility is responsible for repeated errors?mistakes that literally end lives. If you or someone you know has suffered in a similar way, please contact a medical malpractice lawyer today.

Full post as published by Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog on October 05, 2010 (boomark / email).