Monday, July 13, 2009

That Ol' European Style Health Care

MADRID (AP) -- A glaring medical error claimed the life of a baby born prematurely to a woman who was the first person in Spain to die of swine flu, a hospital official said Monday.
The infant boy was delivered June 29 via Cesarean section as his 28-week-pregnant mother's condition worsened. The 20-year-old Moroccan woman died the next day, and doctors later said the baby did not have swine flu.
The child died Monday after a member of the nursing staff at the neonatal care unit of Gregorio Maranon Hospital in Madrid fed the baby using the wrong technique, the hospital's managing director Antonio Barba told a news conference.
On Sunday night, the child was fed baby formula intravenously, rather than through a tube as should have been the case, Barba said.
An hour after the feeding, hospital staff became aware of the mistake and tried to clean the baby's blood, but could not save the child.

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