Lapse by a nurse that cost tiny baby its life
A NURSE has admitted ‘causing or contributing’ to a premature baby’s death after forgetting to turn on a humidifier.
Craig Wilson was working as a neo-natal nurse when he failed to activate the machine to help the newborn breathe.
His mistake happened just before he took a break and it was a colleague who discovered the infant was cold.
When he returned from his break, Wilson swore and said: ‘I forgot to turn it on.’ The baby, born 13 weeks early, died later the same day from hypothermia.
A fellow nurse at the Princess Royal Maternity Hospital in Glasgow told a disciplinary hearing in Edinburgh yesterday she had prepared the machine for use and Wilson had only to ‘switch it on’.
Wilson, who has been a nurse for 13 years, admits his fitness to practise is
‘Incorrectly recorded’
impaired and faces being struck off by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).
The case presenter for the NMC, Alistair Kennedy, said that on August 14, 2013, Baby A, who was born at 27 weeks but had been making good progress in an incubator, was placed in the care of Wilson.
Wilson administered continuous positive airway pressure treatment to the infant before going for his morning break at 10.30am.
A nurse who was keeping an eye on the baby in his absence noticed that the child was cold to touch and that the humidifier had not been switched on.
The nurse took immediate action and the baby was re-incubated, but died at 6pm that evening from hypothermia and multiple organ failure. Mr Kennedy told the hearing that when Wilson returned from his break at 11am, he said: ‘F***, I forgot to switch it on.’
Wilson admitted he initially recorded that the humidifier was turned on and said at the time the only explanation was that somebody else had turned it off.
Wilson’s representative, Robbie Wilson, told the hearing his client now admitted he had not switched on the humidifier.
Nurse Christine McInally told the hearing she helped set up the equipment, adding: ‘I filled the humidifier with water myself, he just had to switch it on.’
She said that when informed the humidifier had not been turned on, Wilson immediately admitted his mistake. She added: ‘He said a swear word first, then said “I forgot to switch it on”.’
She also said he later changed his story and claimed he remembered filling the humidifier with water, but that she knew that he was mistaken, as she had filled it herself.
The charges Wilson has admitted to state that his actions ‘caused or contributed to Baby A developing hypothermia’ and that this ‘contributed to a loss of opportunity for life for Baby A’.
He also admits charge 1.4, which states that he ‘incorrectly recorded in Baby A’s nursing records that the humidifier had been turned on, when that was not the case.’
However, he denies his actions in charge 1.4 ‘were dishonest’ in that he ‘sought to conceal his failure to turn on the humidifier’.
In a separate charge, Wilson admits that while working at the Southern General Maternity Unit, Glasgow, he said a baby had been given medication when they had not and asked a colleague to sign a sheet to say they had.
He denies the charge that he was dishonest and sought to conceal his failure to administer the drug. He also denies that he ‘intended to give the dose of anti-ulcer drug ranitidine to Baby B... without seeking permission from a doctor’.
The hearing continues.