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The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:
A spokesperson for the Princess Margaret Hospital today (October 16) announced the following sentinel event:
A 58 year-old male patient was admitted for septic shock to the Medicine and Geriatrics Ward through Accident and Emergency Department in the evening on October 14. Doctor prescribed inotropic support for his hypotension. His condition deteriorated later and was transferred to Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at around 1am yesterday (October 15) for further management. ICU prescribed high dose of inotropic support and arranged hemodialysis for him as his renal function was deteriorating. Increased oxygen supply was also given. The patient further deteriorated and became unconscious in the same morning. He was intubated and put on ventilator. Subsequently, the attending nurse switched the ventilator to standby mode to readjust the placement of the ventilator modules. Inadvertently, the nurse forgot to switch on the ventilator again after the adjustment was completed. The patient developed cardiac arrest after approximately one minute. Resuscitation was performed immediately. Spontaneous circulation returned and the intensive treatment was continued. Later in the morning, the patient had a brief period of improvement with improved consciousness but subsequently deteriorated again later and passed away at around 10pm.
The hospital has explained the incident in details to his family members and expressed the most sincere apologies. The hospital will provide all kind of necessary support. An investigation panel will be set up to investigate the root cause of the incident and recommend improvement measures. The investigation report will be submitted to Hospital Authority Head Office in eight weeks. The hospital will also formulate improvement measures and enhance the working procedures to prevent recurrence of similar incident.
Ends/Friday, October 16, 2015
Issued at HKT 22:43
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