New | Procedure probed after elderly man dies in Hong Kong hospital’s intensive care unit
An elderly heart patient under intensive care at Queen Mary Hospital died on Monday after what appeared to be a nurse’s failure to following normal procedures in removing a tube for administering medication or dialysis.
The 83-year-old man was being readied for transfer out of the intensive care unit last Friday as his condition was deemed stable after a heart attack.
A nurse who has worked in the intensive care ward for more than two years and was described as “fully trained” and “having performed well”, removed the catheter while the patient was sitting up in an armchair, contrary to the usual procedure that requires the patient to be lying down.
About 10 minutes after the catheter was removed, the patient felt unwell and doctors had to resuscitate him. But his condition worsened afterwards and he died early yesterday morning.
The patient had undergone surgery at the hospital last month to treat an abnormal swelling of the aorta. He returned for follow-up consultations and checks on May 19, but an accident that night in the ward left him with a hip fracture. He underwent surgery to have it fixed on May 21, but last Wednesday, he suffered a heart attack and was admitted to the intensive care unit.
Dr Simon Sin Wai-ching, of the hospital’s adult intensive care unit, said it was too early to conclude whether the nurse’s “mistake” in handling the catheter was the sole cause of the patient’s death.
“There could be clinical reasons that a patient may have to have the catheter removed without lying down, for example, if the intracranial pressure is too high, or in case of respiratory failure.”
Queen Mary’s chief executive, Dr Luk Che-chung, said the hospital would set up a panel to investigate. He said the nurse was well-trained and qualified to make such a clinical judgment and perform the procedure on his own. “Nurses working in the intensive care unit have to undergo specialised training for at least six months to familiarise themselves with the operation of the ward,” Dr Luk said.
The nurse in question was on a regular day off yesterday. He was still working in the intensive care unit over the weekend after the incident.
