Public hospitals log 26 serious medication errors in Q1

The Hospital Authority says the city's public hospitals logged 26 serious untoward events involving medication errors in the first quarter.

That marks a rise of more than 70% from the previous three months.

The tally was 11 higher than the 15 cases reported in the fourth quarter last year, according to the authority’s latest Risk Alert bulletin.

Among the 26 incidents, 12 involved anticoagulants, making them the most commonly implicated medication.

Five involved insulin or oral diabetes drugs, while one concerned medication prescribed to a patient with a known allergy.

The authority also found seven sentinel events, including three procedures performed on the wrong site and three cases in which medical items were left inside patients.

One case involved a patient at Tseung Kwan O Hospital who was supposed to undergo a colostomy but was mistakenly given a gastrostomy. The patient’s condition later worsened and the person died after suffering cardiac arrest. One case involved the removal of a ureteric stent from the left side instead of the right. Another case involved a lumbar decompression procedure performed at the wrong spinal level.

Three other sentinel cases had objects left inside patients. The items included gauze, the four-millimeter tip of a drill bit and a guidewire used in a paediatric catheter procedure.