Woman dies after injecting erroneously prepared medicine

Weak, investigate how it happened. Just sating sorry is not good enough.

Hospital officials, who publicly apologized for the incident...

...bowed, apologized, and went on to enjoy their lives

738 times stronger than prescribed

Say what?!?!?!? It's hard to believe this was an accident.

A coworker's young child (1 yr old) was hospitalized for an ongoing fever, long story short, the baby was given an overdose of a medication during the hospital stay, and the baby had a severe reaction and ended up needing to stay in the hospital close to a month.

The hospital paid minimal compensation for their "human error", the baby was given something like 25 times normal the amount proscribed. They only "paid" for the days following the "error" and nothing else.

My coworker is a really nice guy, too nice in my opinion, as he just wanted to have his baby home (I can understand that) and didn't want to make any more noise about the situation.

Point is, crap like this happens, and the ONLY reason anyone knows about it NOW, is because some poor person died.

Are they suspecting deliberate attempts to harm, or massive incompetence? That will make a difference in how they respond.

This is frightening news either way.

My money's on the "massive incompetence"

No malpractice suits in Japan?

Yubaru, what was the hospital's legal responsibility? Couldn't a civil suit have been brought against them?

There don't seem to be many civil suits in Japan. I don't know why but getting away with manslaughter is just a matter of a deep bow and apology.

Of course the US has so many lawyers that a few tens of thousands could be shipped over. Free of charge would be OK.

Getting away with manslaughter? Please... that's simply not true.

Very few cases go to a trial in Japan because settlements are reached all the time without the grandiose performances like in the US.

Weak, investigate how it happened. Just sating sorry is not good enough.

If they investigated, who would trust them? Which is why:

*Hospital officials, who publicly apologized for the incident, said they had reported it to the police and the health ministry for the further investigation.*

My 2 cents, don't think it was intentional. It happens all the time, everywhere. The pharmacists may have misread the label/concentration, thought they were diluting 0.05ml of selenium in 100ml of saline when they were actually diluting 1ml. Same with the diluent agent: nothing looks more like 100ml of normal saline than 100ml of 'insert name of any diluent agent' which has half (or less) the strength of the usual prod.

Could also be miscommunication between the 2 pharmacists ("did he/she already dilute it? 1ml or 10ml? etc") and yes, obviously lack of concentration. (738 times though!)

An incident in the UK where concentrated chloroform water was used, instead of double strength chloroform water, a difference of around 20 times in potency, led to the closure of most hospital pharmacy manufacturing units, and the growth of external specialist manufacturing units. Errors were reduced, quality improved, as they were now subject to the same standards as pharmaceutical manufacturers, (GMP); but time to prepare and deliver was now measured in days, not hours; flexibility was reduced and costs went up.

Most likely a calculation error, or a mistake in the actual aseptic preparation procedure; certainly not deliberate, but those two pharmacists will have to live with the patient's death for the rest of their lives,

Pathetic, incompetent how on earth can a "trained" pharmaceutical expert give 738 times dose. Don't know what training they get. Personally I leave Japan for any medical problems. A dentist almost killed me and 10 years on I still have residual problems. Going to court is a waist of time they always side with the "company".

This is scary news whether it was just an accident or intentional. I pray to the gods that I never one day find myself dying in a Japanese hospital...shudder

That’s why I don’t and won’t buy life insurance. I don’t want anybody to be putting stuff in my curry or any collaborating pharmaceutical accomplices.