Dennis Quaid and his wife Kimberly welcomed twins Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace on November 8th of last year, but just a few weeks later Quaid and his family became the stars of a hospital screw-up.
The twins were given mass doses of Heparin, an anti-coagulant drug. Typically children, specifically infants, receive ten units of the drug, but the twins were given 10,000 units of the drug.
Heparin is used to prevent blood clots by thinning blood. The massive overdose caused the infants to start “bleeding out”. The twins spent several days in an intensive care unit at Cedars-Sinai. The overdose was particularly dangerous because of the age and weight of the twins at the time.
Follow-up reports revealed that several patients had received wrong dosages, including another newborn baby. The hospital has since been fined for negligence in the cases.
Quaid has become a spokesman as of late regarding human error in hospital settings. According to Babyrazzi.com, a celebrity baby blog, Quaid was present at the Association of Health Care Journalist's Annual Conference, in Washington D.C. Last week. He was accompanied by 15-year-old son Jack. Jack is from Quaid's first marriage to Meg Ryan.
Quaid's speech brought to light the problems of human error in hospitals. He stated at the conference “[Human Error] is one of the leading causes of death in our country, [greater] than automobile accidents, breast cancer or AIDS.”
Quaid continued by stating that the problem does not receive media attention because it happens on a case by case basis and can quickly slip under the radar. Human error stories do hit the media however the stories that are picked up are few and far between. The length of time between national reports lead the public to believe that medical mistakes are few and far between. Quaid contends that is simply not the case.
Quaid added that both babies are now doing well and developing at a normal pace. No lasting effects appear to be evident at the moment according to Quaid's statement.
Shortly after the overdose Quaid and his wife filed a lawsuit against Baxter Healthcare Corporation claiming negligence in packaging. The pair contended that Heparin and the lower dosage, Hep-lock were packaged in near identical vials.
The incident involving Quaid is not the first according to an article by Darin L. Schanker for Injuryboard.com.
Just one year prior to the incident in California six newborns were given mass doses of the same drug, three of the children in that case died as a result. Baxter allegedly redesigned new packaging following the 2006 incident but did not recall nor warn hospitals with stocks of the former vials on hand.
Cedar-Sinai was one of the hospitals with previous stock on hand.
