A 65-year-old St. Charles Bend patient died Dec. 3, two days after staff members there accidentally gave her a paralyzing agent instead of the anti-seizure medication her physician had ordered. The mistake, which hospital officials publicly acknowledged and apologized for after the patient’s family took their story to the media, happened because the wrong drug was inserted into the patient’s IV bag and labeled as the medication she was supposed to receive. Although hospital officials place all of the blame for the incident on the wrong medication being administered, other medical experts have questioned whether the patient could have been saved had she not been left unattended in her room for up to 40 minutes after the drug was administered.
