Tainted medical product sends teen to the hospital, recall issued
Medical staff members at urgent care clinics are expected to give a high level of medical care. In some cases, those urgent care clinics might administer intravenous fluids if a patient is dehydrated. A recent case that was filed in a New York Supreme Court alleges that a female teen at an urgent care clinic received tainted IV fluids when she went to the facility for flu-like symptoms.
The lawsuit alleges that the IV fluids were administered by the nurse practitioner, who was under the direction of a physician’s assistant. The issue at hand is that the IV fluid wasn’t suitable for use on patients. Instead, the fluid that was administered to the patient was only for educational and training purposes.
After receiving the IV fluids, the teen took a turn for the worse. She ended up in the ICU for five days with septic shock. The operator of the urgent care facility, a doctor, recognized that the IV fluid might have been contaminated. He contacted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the New York Department of Health.
That alert was the beginning of an investigation. It came to light that IV bags from Wallcur, a company that only provides IV bags for educational and training purposes, might have been sent to health care facilities. The issue reached far beyond New York. The FDA notes that it is aware of 40 patients who received the solution. Of those 26 got sick, and 11 of those 26 had to be hospitalized. A nationwide recall was issued.
This shows just how careful health care professionals must be when giving care to individuals. In this case, labeling of the IV solution might be the issue. Still, what happened is unacceptable.
If you have been harmed because of tainted medical products, you might opt to seek compensation. Understanding the process for seeking compensation might help you to decide what you want to do.
Source: Watertown Daily Times, “Adams teen claims in lawsuit that now-recalled medical product caused serious illness,” Brian Kelly, Sep. 26, 2015
