Medication bungles endanger children at major Gauteng hospital

15 May 2017

I am horrified by the findings of pharmacists who observed hundreds of medication errors in the children wards of the George Mukhari Hospital in north west Gauteng.

According to the research recorded in the South African Journal of Child Health, the pharmacists spent 16 weeks in the four paediatric wards at this hospital and detected 663 medication errors — an average of 2.9 per patient.

Most of the errors involved incorrect dosing‚ followed by omission of medication and medicine being given at the wrong time.

In one in three patients‚ the error resulted in "some level of harm". Although none suffered permanent harm or died, the pharmacists had to intervene to prevent some major errors

Examples of the medication errors include:

- Nurse forgot to order antibiotics;

- Drip not inserted so patient did not get medication;

- Medication given at 2pm instead of 10am;

- Antibiotic given 8-hourly instead of 6-hourly;

- Medicine mixed with tap water instead of sterile water; and

- One needle used to reconstitute all intravenous medication for the ward.

I strongly suspect that similar errors are happening in other hospitals in the province as well.

The Gauteng Health Department should implement the researchers' recommendations which include assigning a pharmacist to the paediatric wards‚ improving training for doctors and nurses‚ and the introduction of a digital database of medication errors.

I hope that these findings are a wake-up call for the Department to tighten medication standards in all our hospitals.

Issued by Jack Bloom, DA Gauteng Shadow Health MEC, 15 May 2017