A DOCTOR WHO CAN'T READ A LABEL KILLS

And a culture of carelessness kills

"A critic of declining standards in the National Health Service died after being given a large overdose of iron by a hospital doctor who did not read the instructions on the drug's label properly. Carys Pugh, 63, a former president of a patients' association in Wales, was taken to casualty at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital after the blunder turned her skin brown and "saturated" her liver with iron.

While she fought for survival in hospital for seven weeks, Mrs Pugh suffered a heart attack and contracted deep vein thrombosis in both legs, a chest infection and then E.coli. Finally, she suffered a second heart attack that killed her.

When her daughter, Hawys Pugh, complained to the hospital authorities about what had gone wrong she was told that the doctor who had carried out the routine infusion for suspected anaemia had found the instructions difficult to decipher and that he had only read half of them. "They told me that because the text was in two columns instead of one, the doctor just read the section on how much to give, but didn't bother reading the rest which said over what duration it should be given," Miss Pugh said. "Instead, he just put the entire dose into her system in one go. They suggested it was the manufacturer's fault and said they would be contacting them."

The officials dismissed Miss Pugh's concerns that the overdose had caused her mother's initial heart attack and refused to name the doctor concerned, insisting that the trust had a "no blame" culture.

Miss Pugh said last week: "Basically, they admitted that it had been a mistake and an accident due to a failure to read the instructions, but denied it was negligence, which I find ridiculous." Miss Pugh said that the way that her mother, who was the head of the Mid Glamorgan Valley's patients' association in the 1990s and a staunch critic of the NHS's failures, had been treated was "a disgrace".

More here.

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation.

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