NYC Clinic Probed After Woman Dies During Abortion
January 27, 2010
NY Daily News
By Michael J. Feeney, Barry Paddock, and Jonathan Lemire
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School Staffers May Have Received Insulin Instead of Flu Vaccine
January 20, 2010
ABC News
By Joseph Brownstein
When staff members at a Wellesley, Mass., school went to the nurse last Friday, they expected to be injected with a vaccine for theH1N1 flu. What they received instead was a shot of insulin resulting in a bout with low blood sugar.
While the staffers seem to be suffering no long-term damage from mistakenly receiving the insulin injections, investigations are ongoing to determine what caused the medical error. Indications thus far have been that a school nurse was responsible. The nurse has been temporarily relieved of duty.
While ABC News contacted people at the departments of health for the town of Wellesley and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the Wellesley School District, it remains unclear how the flu vaccine, which is distributed in pre-filled syringes, was mistaken for insulin, which is drawn from a vial because each dose needs to be calibrated when it is given.
Such errors have happened before. This past fall, a number of people in the neighboring town of Needham received a seasonal flu vaccine in place of the H1N1 vaccines they were supposed to receive. And in 2007, a teacher in the nearby town of Attleboro also received an injection of insulin instead of the intended flu shot.
“Mistakes can always be made,” said Lisa Lowery, a registered nurse and immunizations program manager for the Visiting Nurse Service in Indianapolis. While she is reluctant to blame the nurse, she said other steps can be taken to avoid such a problem.
The benefit of having a nurse specifically performing a vaccination clinic, according to Lowery, is that it allows the nurse to be more focused. “You’re in a habit of doing what you’re doing. You’re doing one vaccine and only one vaccine,” she said.
“In practices, you’re taught to take the bottle to another nurse and have her double-check what you’re about to give,” she said — a situation that isn’t possible when a school nurse alone is administering vaccine.
“That nurse is not used to injecting vaccines as a school nurse,” said Lowery. “It would have been her habit to pick up insulin. Having someone to back them up and check them out would have prevented some more errors. If you’re holding a vaccination clinic, use someone who’s used to doing that.”
Kay Renny, a registered nurse and manager of community programs for the Visiting Nurse Association of Southeast Michigan in Detroit said other steps are typically taken to avoid such a problem.
She said when her nurses are giving out both seasonal and swine flu vaccines, they do so in two separate lines with two separate forms, which do not look alike, so that nurses — who are only administering one shot — will notice. “This is the first year where we’re administering two flu vaccines at the same time,” she said, explaining it presented a new challenge.
When a mistake happens, “It doesn’t hurt them, but it doesn’t help them. What they want is what they’re there for,” said Renny. “You try to put steps in place to avoid that happening.”
She noted that the syringes for insulin and flu vaccine are similar but “Whenever administering any kind of medication, you have to double check when you have multiple kinds of medication in front of you. You really need to double check your double check.”
Hospital No Longer Able to Treat Illegal Immigrants
November 23, 2009
New York Times
By Kevin Sack
Each had crossed the border years before, smuggled across the desert by a coyote, never imagining the journey would lead to a drab and dusty clinic on the ninth floor of Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
Some knew before the crossing that they had diabetes or lupus or high blood pressure, but it was only after they arrived that their kidneys began to fail. To survive, they needed dialysis at a cost of about $50,000 a year, which their sporadic work as housekeepers, painters and laborers could not begin to cover.
And so they turned to Grady, a taxpayer-supported safety-net hospital that would provide dialysis to anyone in need, even illegal immigrants with no insurance or ability to pay. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday morning, the 15 or so patients would settle into their recliners, four to a room, and while away the monotonous three-hour treatments by chitchatting in Spanish.
That all changed on Oct. 4, when the strapped public hospital closed its outpatient dialysis clinic, leaving 51 patients — almost all illegal immigrants — in a life-or-death limbo.
For Grady, which has served Atlanta’s poor for 117 years, it was an excruciating choice, a stark reflection of what happens when the country’s inadequate health care system confronts its defective immigration policy.
Like other hospitals, particularly public hospitals, Grady has been left to provide costly treatments to nonpaying illegal residents who most likely could not have obtained such care in their home countries. American taxpayers and health care consumers have borne the expense.
Over time, the mounting losses have compromised Grady’s charitable mission, forcing layoffs, increases in fees and the elimination of services.
“Years and years of providing this free care has led Grady to the breaking point,” said Matt Gove, one of the hospital’s senior vice presidents. “If we don’t make the gut-wrenching decisions now, there won’t be a Grady later. Then, everyone loses.”
But for the dialysis patients, the sudden end to their reassuring routine has prompted a panic.
“We didn’t know what to do,” said Ignacio G. Lopez, 23, who had been sustained by the clinic for more than three years. “We can pass away if we stay like two weeks without dialysis. They were just sending us out to die.”
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Cops Hold Down Boy for Flu Shot
November 13, 2009
The Intelligencer
By Shelley Hanson
It took the strength of two sheriff’s deputies to keep a middle schooler still enough to receive a shot of the swine flu, or H1N1, vaccine at a recent clinic.
During a regular Wheeling-Ohio County Health Board meeting Tuesday, health department Administrator Howard Gamble told board members about the student’s attempt to flee Wheeling Middle School during a vaccination clinic held there last Friday.
He noted the boy’s mother could not bear to watch the scene and left the gymnasium. Out of apparent fear of receiving the injection, the student ran out of the building. The school’s resource officer, Ohio County Sheriff’s Deputy John Haglock, coaxed the boy back inside. Once at the shot station, however, Haglock apparently needed some help keeping the boy still, and another deputy assisted.
“He tried to run. I looked over and saw two sheriff’s deputies holding a kid down,” Gamble said. “Mom took off, she couldn’t take it. You had one nurse with the needle, two deputies holding him, one nurse is grabbing hands – because that’s what they want to do, to go after the needle. And that’s the last thing you want.”
Gamble said as soon as the nurse gave the boy his injection and told him he was done, he hopped up like nothing had happened.
“For the most part they go very easy. As far as the shots, every once in awhile you have to hold down one or two – but that’s why mom is there or dad is there,” Gamble said.
He added after the meeting that Friday’s incident was the only time Ohio County deputies have held a student during a shot.
“They’re mostly there for parking and directions. They also know the kids. … They were our first line of contact when setting up the clinics,” Gamble said.
Neither Sheriff Pat Butler nor Haglock could be reached for comment. A sheriff’s department official said Haglock is on vacation for the next two weeks.
During a clinic Tuesday at Bridge Street Middle School, similar scenes took place – though not quite as dramatic and not involving officers of the law. A couple sets of parents could be seen keeping their children from wiggling away while a nurse quickly administered the vaccine.
Ten-year-old Austin Price, the son of Jennifer and Josh Price, decided to take the shot standing up and with no assistance from his mom or dad. He even smiled for a photograph.
And on a scale of 1-10, how painful was the shot?
