N.L. health board apologizes after woman given chemotherapy by mistake

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http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090504/health/health_chemo_mistake_2

N.L. health board apologizes after woman given chemotherapy by mistake

Mon May 4, 4:50 PM

By Tara Brautigam, The Canadian Press

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - Newfoundland and Labrador's largest health board apologized

Monday after a nurse mistakenly gave chemotherapy to a woman during scheduled

treatment for a skin disease.

Mojica-Fisher went to the Dr. G.B. Cross Memorial Hospital in Clarenville

last Thursday for her fourth infusion of Remicade, a drug used for her

psoriasis.

An hour after she left the hospital, she felt queasiness and burning sensations

in her stomach and chest, Mojica-Fisher said.

A couple of hours later, the hospital's head nurse notified her that she had

been given chemotherapy by accident.

" Shocked - that was my feeling, " Mojica-Fisher said Monday in an interview,

hours before she was to be admitted to the Health Sciences Centre in St. 's

for a further check-up.

" I was just crying and they said it's because of human error. "

Mojica-Fisher, who is a minister at the Heritage United Church in Musgravetown,

said she feels tired and nauseous - the side-effects she believes came from the

mistaken chemotherapy treatment.

" It's unreal. It's unacceptable, " she said.

Pat Coish-Snow, a chief operating officer with Eastern Health, confirmed that

Mojica-Fisher was given chemotherapy by mistake and said the health board has

launched an investigation into the incident.

" I have not had an incident of a medication error as serious as this one before,

so it's a very rare circumstance, " said Coish-Snow, a health care administrator

with 25 years experience.

" We apologize. We're sincerely sorry (that) something like this happened. It's

not something that you wish would happen to any patient. "

Coish-Snow said a nurse was caring for two patients, including Mojica-Fisher, at

the time of the error.

" A nurse made a mistake on that day. Why she made that mistake is why we need to

investigate further, " she said.

" I would have to say, in my initial review of this incident, workload would not

have been the factor to cause this to happen. "

The side-effects of chemotherapy range widely and include hair loss, muscle pain

and heart problems, depending on the type of chemotherapy given.

" The side-effects are numerous ... there are certainly, certainly significant

side-effects from taking a chemotherapy drug, " Coish-Snow said.

" It is a very toxic drug. "

The error is the latest black eye against Eastern Health in recent months, as

the health board struggles to rebuild public confidence in the province's health

care system.

In April, Eastern Health announced that treatment test results from 38 breast

cancer patients needed to be reviewed to determine whether they were accurate,

weeks after the conclusion of a judicial inquiry into botched breast cancer

tests.

That inquiry found that a litany of problems led to at least 386 patients

receiving the wrong results on tests intended to determine an appropriate course

of treatment for their breast cancer.

At least 108 patients whose tests were misread have died. But it will likely

never be known how many of them, if any, died as a result of missing out on

potentially life-saving treatment.

A failure of accountability and oversight " at all levels " within the province's

health-care system led to the mistakes, Justice Margaret Cameron wrote in her

inquiry report.