"Prescription Mistake"

Our parent was admitted to Sir Charles Gardiner hospital by ambulance to the emergency department where their sugar levels were dangerously high for their age. The next day these extremely high levels were attributed to an incorrectly written prescription, prescribed by an Medical Oncology advanced trainee, that prescribed steroids to be taken two a day rather than only for the day before chemo, the day of chemo and the day after chemo. My parent had at this point been taking steroids every day for six weeks. The Medical Oncology consultant took responsibly for the mistake with the prescription, and we were told an internal investigation was launched. We have not been informed of the investigations finding or progress.

The high dosage of steroids caused atrial fibrillation. The doctors started to wean my parent off the high dosage. During that week, they became unconscious, and a MET call was initiated. The doctors could not establish was caused this. They had a CT scan to see if they had suffered a stroke and to check any abnormalities in their brain. No abnormalities were found.

My parent was then transferred to ICU where numerous tests including a lumbar puncture were performed to determined what has caused them to slip into a coma. They also had blood clots in their lungs, which were being treated with blood thinners. During this time the doctors noticed that my parent has ulcers that had commenced bleeding in their duodenum. To treat this, the gastroenterology doctors performed a gastroscopy to stop the bleeding. The blood thinners were stopped. Four days after my parent became unconscious, they woke up. The doctors still did not know what had caused them to lose consciousness.

Whilst in ICU, the Medical Oncology consultant in charge of my parent’s care visited them and I recall said, One day we'll look back at all of this and laugh about it. During my parent's care the issues they has had have been linked to the steroids, even though the Medical Oncology doctors kept insisting these were pre-existing issues. None of these issues were a factor before the incorrect dosage of the steroids.

From ICU my parent was transferred to a ward. On the ward, my parent suffered another massive bleed, but we were not told of this by their team until the gastrologist mentioned it when they performed another gastroscopy.

When we questioned the Medical Oncology doctors in charge of my parent's care, they had said they were more concerned that they may have tuberculosis, due to a cough they had developed in hospital, rather than the bleed, that was life threatening. I understand our reaction to not being told about the massive bleed was deemed to be hostile and angry by the team of Medical Oncology doctors and we were told that we should move past the prescription incident if we wanted the doctors to continue to provide care for our parent. The Medical Oncology registrar was then removed from my parent’s care because of our reaction was deemed hostile and the registrar did not want to deal with our anger and hostility.

Because the doctors suspected that my parent may have TB, they were moved to a depressurized room on another ward. One week later, they were cleared of an TB infection.

Last week the team was changed, and the Medical Oncology consultant was replaced with another Medical Oncology consultant so they could have ‘fresh eyes’ on my parent’s care. The replacement Medical Oncology consultant advised us that any issues my parent has had related to the steroid prescription and our anger towards it need to be compartmentalized in order for the doctors to take care of our parent and get them better and we need to move past any reference to the incident. The doctor said that avenues to make a complaint can be made. This is the avenue we have now taken.