Hong Kong patient critically ill after laxative delivered to lung in feeding tube blunder
Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital says incident likely to have been caused by an intern doctor wrongly assessing an X-ray scan
An elderly Hong Kong man has been left in a critical condition after a feeding tube was wrongly placed in his airway in hospital, delivering a liquid laxative into his right lung rather than his stomach for around an hour.
Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital said on Thursday that the blunder was likely to have been caused by an intern doctor wrongly assessing an X-ray scan.
“Our initial investigation shows the intern doctor who was responsible for reading the X-ray scan wrongly assessed the location of the feeding tube, leading to this incident,” said Dr Sara Ho Yuen-ha, service director for quality and safety for public hospitals in Hong Kong Island East.
The man, 76, had been admitted to the Chai Wan hospital on Wednesday morning to prepare for a colonoscopy examination the next day.
As he had difficulty swallowing, a feeding tube was inserted with the intention of delivering a laxative that would help him empty his bowels ahead of the colonoscopy.
Ho said the nurse had followed proper guidelines after placing the tube and conducted standard tests. But the tests could not confirm the tube’s location so an X-ray check was conducted in the afternoon.
