The nurse gave the patient 20 milligrams of adrenaline instead of 20 micrograms, a dose 1,000 times higher than prescribed.
A nurse from the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Marseille (AP-HM) was sentenced on Monday, September 10, to 12 months in prison, suspended, for involuntary manslaughter by the Marseille criminal court, for having administered 1,000 times the prescribed dose of adrenaline to a patient, causing her death.
The judgment, lower than the prosecution’s demands, which had requested a 15-month suspended prison sentence, does not provide for damages against her.
Admitted on September 5, 2017 to the rheumatology department of the Sainte-Marguerite day hospital, the victim, aged 47, was to undergo a fifth injection to treat rheumatoid arthritis. After an allergic episode, she had suffered an anaphylactic shock, quickly treated by an intern supervised by a senior doctor.
Based on the protocol established for this type of situation, the intern prescribed an injection of 20 micrograms of adrenaline. But the nurse, who had arrived a few months earlier, administered 20 milligrams, or 1,000 times more, in this case the four vials of five milligrams present on the emergency trolley. The patient having been transferred to intensive care, the dosage error was not revealed until the next day. The woman died on September 9.
A “trying” hearing
The nurse, now retired, maintained in court in July that she had heard the intern speak of “milligrams”, but for the head of department, this dosage “cannot exist”, the recommended dose in the event of cardiac arrest being one milligram.
Asked “what dosage would have been fatal to her”, the defendant replied that she did not know, having never used adrenaline before in her career. “They told me ‘hurry up, hurry up!'”.
The nurse’s lawyer, Philippe Bonfils, has ruled out appealing the judgment for the time being. “I don’t think we’ll appeal, the hearing was trying for the victim’s family, but also for my client,” he said.
“At the same time, it is difficult for her to bear the weight of responsibility alone, she is only one link in a deficient organisation. It would not have been shocking if the hospital had also been sued,” he added, specifying that the AP-HM was ordered to pay damages to the victim’s family but has appealed.
