Hospital Pharmacy Error led to infant Deaths
A Corpus Christi hospital admitted recently that a mixing error in its pharmacy led to the overdosing of 17 individuals and may have caused the death of a twin brother and sister. The error involved the blood thinner heparin, but was unrelated to product labeling or packaging according the chief medical officer of Christus Spohn Health System, Dr. Richard Davis. The mixing error is believed to have occurred July 3, and that heparin batch was first administered in the neonatal intensive care unit July 4. Nurses noticed the overdoses during routine blood work and stopped using the heparin immediately giving patients medications to counter the effects. Twelve other patients received the overdoses and three infants may have just before they were released from the hospital. The hospital reported no ill effects in those three babies. The twins who died, Keith and Kaylynn Garcia, were born one month premature July 1 at Christus Spohn Hospital in Alice and transferred for higher-level care to Christus Spohn Hospital South in Corpus Christi, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times reported. The babies' parents received a judge's order preventing the hospital from destroying any records related to the babies' hospital stay or the heparin overdose. The Texas Department of State Health Services is conducting a review.
