NHS failed us — twice
A WOMAN whose father died following a hospital blunder was reeling this week after her mother was sent home from a sister hospital with the wrong drugs.
Samantha Berman campaigned for an inquiry after her father Frank Reuben, 80, was wrongly discharged by staff at Barnet Hospital with a chest infection. He was readmitted two days later but died. Barnet admitted the level of care was “not acceptable” and pledged the issues she raised could not happen again.
But last week her mother, Rochelle Butters, 73, was admitted to Watford General Hospital, of the West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust, with a urine infection.
She was treated and then discharged with drugs she was to self-admin- ister. But only when she opened the packet did she realise they were not the pills she was expecting but a syringe for her to inject herself.
When she queried this, a district nurse found she had been given the blood-thinning drug, heparin, usually used to treat blood clots, and that the prescription had been intended for a male patient. Mrs Berman, who is still awaiting the outcome of the Barnet Hospital inquiry, said: “I am beyond devastated. The NHS has failed my family again in a matter of just over two months. I want the nurse who gave my mum the drugs susp pended pending investigation.
“It just goes to show you can’t ev even trust them to give you the right dr drugs. If they were pills, my mum w would have probably ta taken them and then G God knows what would h have happened.”
Mrs Berman contacte ed the hospital immedia ately and asked that the in incident be recorded as a serious inc incident on the risk register.
She said: “After I got in touch, a m matron called my mum and made li light of what had happened.” Jac Jackie Ardley, interim chief nurse and director of infection, prevention and control, emailed Mrs Berman with an apology. She said: “I really am so sorry that this has happened to your mother. This has been declared as a serious incident and we will be undertaking a full review of what happened and why it went wrong. Once the investigation is complete, we will meet and go through the findings.”
A spokesperson for West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust refused to comment on the implications had Mrs Butters taken the drugs.
‘I am beyond devestated. I want the nurse involved to be sacked’