EBME Forums Forums Free discussion Free discussion Faulty dialysis machine???

Check out this article claiming a faulty dialysis machine killed a patient. Sounds very fishy. I have been repairing and maintaining dialysis machines for 20 years and I cannot imagine how the machine(no matter what model it is)could do this. Sounds more like a person or more likly persons are at fault here.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...iquid-body.html

At the very least those people were guilty of poor nursing. Would it have been too much to hope they could have checked on the patient from time to time?

Too busy surfing the net, twitching away at text messages, and/or otherwise arranging their social lives, I should imagine. I see it everywhere I go.

But, don't worry, they would have had degrees. And fear not, ranks will have closed, files will have been "mislaid", and "lessons will have been learned"! Yeah, right.

"nurses at the former Derby City General Hospital had been aware the machine was broken, but continued to use it"

"Hospital staff said they were aware of a fault on the machine but thought it was a minor problem with a timer."

Quotes from the article

Nuff said

Robert

I think we need to look a little deeper into what is said here because it appears that there is some "News speak" going on (i.e. journalistic licence).
Firstly, if the patient was on Haemodialysis and the "extra" fluid was pumped into the blood lines and then into the patient, then who changed the 1 litre bags to enable 6 to 8 of them to be pumped into the patient???!!!!
Secondly, if the patient was on Hemofiltration, then why didn't someone notice that there was a fluid imbalance by just looking at the input and output bags.
Lastly, if the patient was on Perotineal dialysis, then surely someone, including the patient, would have noticed his grossly extended abdomen!!??
Sounds like to me that the nurses were totally incompetent as well as stupid.

My wife is a nurse at Great Ormond St Hospital on NICU amd my inlaws read the Daily Mail. They often have stories about patiens she has looked after and she says they are always complete rubish. Lesson don't read the Daily Mail.

Yes, the Daily Mail is always a bit of a wind-up. But there have been plenty of (other) well-known cases where they have exposed all sorts of goings on. That is, stuff that the hospitals, Trusts etc. have apparently been content only to "learn lessons" from.

Lesson:- keep an eye on all the newspapers (and/or news websites), but also keep an open mind. Long live the Fourth Estate! Without the Press we would be totally in the er, dark!

I think the presses’ understanding of anything scientific is very poor. Very few journalists have any experience with engineering or science as well as a desire to have attention grabbing headlines. After reading a book called the 'tiger that isn't' I doubt every statistic I read.

Yes ... but even journalists probably understand words such as "death", and "negligence", I would have thought.

But if it turns out that neither the equipment or the nurses were at fault but a patient with an already weak heart and was said to be deteriating by his wife just had a heart attack, will it be a story in the news paper, maybee an inch with no pic.

Check the story. It was reporting (what was said at) an inquest.