News article on Heparin
Brief summary of the main issues of the article
The main issues discussed in the report encompass of overdose that discussed the report, which involves overdose of Heparin. The article mainly focuses on Dennis Quaid’s twins that were given a highly dosage of the blood thinning drug. In the report, the mistake of giving overdose drugs to the patient is revealed one of the chief mistakes that are displayed in the United States hospitals. The incident of patients receiving the blood-thinning drug is not new in the United States of America. For instance, the article displays that there in Indianapolis, six twins died after receiving excess dosage of the blood thinning heparin (FOX News. Com. 2012).
The two twins, Thomas Boone and Grace Zoe, born in the Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre. According to the news received from TMZ which is a celebrity web site, the two twins received an overdose of 10, 000 units of heparin. The dosage is mistake in which the twins were supposed to receive only ten units of the dosage instead (FOX News. Com. 2012). However, the Cider-Sinai was affected with the news, which interfered with the normal operations at the hospital. According to the management of the hospital, the error was a preventable error that all the doctors and nurses would prevent. The error in the dosage of the excess heparin was caused by failure to adhere to the procedures and policies implemented in the health care management.
A discussion of why it is an important issue
The issue concerning overdose in most of the major hospital is vital issue since the number of the deaths associated with overdose are rapidly increasing. According to Garner Alice, who is a neonatologist at Long Island College in Brooklyn hospital in New York, overdose cases occur in hospitals because of negligence of the vital rules and regulations (FOX News. Com, 2012). According to her argument, most nurses and doctors neglect the duty of measuring and stocking of the medicine dosage to the hospital pharmacies. For this reason, the dosage of the medicine of the various diseases might easily be mixed up. This is also attributed by the fact that most of the medication for both adults and infants are measured and stored in the same place. Therefore, during retrieval process for use, the doctors easily confuse and use the adult’s dosage on the infants. The article is important since it assists in the revealing of the dangers that are associated to the overdose of medications in hospitals in America.
How this article relates to your chosen field, which is Pharmacy.
The article is related to pharmacy, which is my chosen field since it vividly discussed the one of the vital pharmacy mistake that is conducted in several hospitals. The field of pharmacy, that deals with giving appropriate medication to sick patients in accordance to the physician instructions. In this case, the mistake of overdose of heparin, which is offered to the infants in the hospitals, is a problem that is associated with the hospitals pharmacy (FOX News. Com. 2012). The pharmacies in the hospitals are responsible for measuring and stocking medications that are yet to be used in the patients. This implies that a mistake in the overdose of the twins is a mistake that would be avoided if the heparin medication for adults and infants was separately prepared and stored.
Works cited
FOX News. Com. Actor’s Anguish: Quaid Twins’ Overdose Highlights Potentially Deadly Effect of Hospital Errors. Accessed on 24th May, 2012. Retrieved from: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312443,00.html
