Nurse tells inquest into boy's death she cannot explain how mistake was made
The coroner's court began an inquest yesterday into the case of an infant who died at Queen Mary Hospital after a feeding tube was mistakenly inserted into his lung.
Au Tsz-hin was 17-months-old when he died in January last year, a few hours after a gastric tube was inserted into his right lung instead of his stomach. A pathologist found that he died of pulmonary hypertension, aspiration pneumonia and insertion of a drip-feeding tube into an airway.
The inquest is investigating whether natural causes, misadventure or other causes were responsible for the boy's death. The boy's parents, Au Wing-keung and Pang Pui-shan, and hospital nurse Cheung Wai-lai, testified yesterday before coroner Peter White.
It was Ms Cheung who inserted the tube into Tsz-hin, with the help of two other nurses. Yesterday she told the court that she had conducted two tests to ensure that the tube went into the correct place on the night of January 27, last year.
She tried to draw fluid from the boy's stomach to see whether the tube had entered the correct place. When the test failed to produce any fluid, she used a stethoscope to listen to the boy's stomach.
When Ms Cheung heard a 'clear gurgling sound' in Tsz-hin's stomach, she concluded that the tube had gone into the right place. But X-rays of the boy later showed that the tube had actually gone into the right lung instead of the stomach.