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The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:
The spokesperson for the Shatin Hospital (SH) made the following announcement today (April 7) regarding an incident of handling the death documentation of a deceased patient:
On March 30 morning, an 87-year-old male in-patient of Medical and Geriatrics Ward was deteriorating and dying due to his own medical condition. The patient's family had earlier agreed to "Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation" (DNACPR). The ward nurse informed family on patient's deteriorating condition. At 10.55am, the Diagnostic Electrocardiography (ECG) device showed that the heartbeat of the patient had completely stopped, besides, the blood pressure and pulse had been unmeasurable. As the patient had passed away, the nurse informed doctor for announcing death and completing respective certification document. Since the doctor was engaged by other clinical duties, he did not prepare respective document complete the documentation at that time.
Later at around 11am, after family members had arrived for viewing the deceased patient, the nurse started last offices at around noon and arranged mortuary staff for collection of dead body from ward to mortuary. Since the doctor was still engaged with other clinical duties, the nurse was not aware that the document had not been processed, before sending out the dead body from ward.
When doctor finished the duty and returned to ward at around 2pm, it was found that the death document had not been processed. Hence he went to mortuary for processing the document.
Hospital Authority Head Office has been notified via the "Advance Incident Reporting System" after the case being reported to hospital management. Family of the deceased patient has been informed and apology has been made. The hospital is very concerned about the incident, and an in-depth investigation will be carried out. The foci of investigation would be the handling procedures of deceased patient, incident reporting mechanism and communication among healthcare staff. The hospital will follow up on results and recommendations made by the investigation panel.
The investigation panel will submit report in eight weeks, and make recommendations for improvement. Disciplinary action may be taken according to standard human resources guidelines if necessary. The hospital will remind frontline healthcare staff again on confirmation of documentation on patients' death information before transferring dead body to mortuary. Training will be strengthened for enhancing communication among healthcare staff to prevent a reoccurrence of similar incidents.
Ends/Thursday, April 7, 2016
Issued at HKT 21:31
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