Concerns over Leeds hospital after baby is given steroid overdose ten times
18/03/2010
A leading hospital negligence lawyer has spoken out about his concerns over poorly managed systems at a Leeds hospital where a premature baby was prescribed an overdose of steroids more than 10 times the normal dose, on 10 different occasions.
Kyle Thistlewaite died after being born prematurely at 25 weeks on the 20th April 2007. He and his mother arrived at Leeds General Infirmary, after a transfer from Bassetlaw Hospital in Worksop. He was given 10 times the recommended dose of a steroid and this happened not once but on 10 separate occasions.
Kyle was given a dose of a hydrocortisone steroid on the 21st April to try and counter the effects of his low blood pressure, unfortunately the dose that was given was 10 times higher than the recommended amount and in a series of further mistakes this dose was administered 10 times within a 48 hour period before the mistake was recognised.
Sadly, Kyle died three days after his birth and although hospital negligence relating to the overdose of medication was not the reason for his death, which was recorded as prematurity and a brain haemorrhage, the coroner David Hinchcliff did highlight the mistakes in his report.
A hospital negligence specialist from Irwin Mitchell, Tim Annett, is representing Kyle’s family in the case and has spoken out about his concerns over the procedures in place at the hospital.
He said: "The family were obviously shocked to learn of the steroid dosage error. This mistake raises important questions about the systems at the hospital for calculating and checking drug dosage. A serious error was made and this was repeated by a number of different staff before it was identified by chance. Kyle's parents want to make sure that this can never happen again.
"Patient safety should be the number one concern of the NHS and it is vital that improvements are identified and implemented to stop what is essentially a very basic error, it is important that the hospital learns from its mistakes."
Kyle's father, Craig Thistlewaite, said: "We were horrified to learn of the dosage error given to Kyle but we are relieved to find out that this did not contribute to his death.
"However it is only right that the coroner highlighted the error. How a baby can be given an overdose so high in the first place is bad but to be given the overdose 10 times is totally unacceptable. I am also amazed that we were not told about the mistake until after our son died and we welcome any further action to stop mistakes like this happening again as we wouldn’t want anyone to suffer the pain we have."
Unfortunately, Kyle’s condition quickly deteriorated and on the 23rd April 2007 his family made the difficult decision to turn off his life support systems. A post-mortem examination showed that an intraventicular haemorrhage was the reason for his death.
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