Meds tick-box error contributed to former nurse’s death: coroner
The 79-year-old died after receiving the wrong form of verapamil
An ED registrar’s failure to mark a single tick box led to a medication error that contributed to a patient’s cardiac arrest, a coroner has found.
The patient, a 79-year-old retired nurse, presented to Canberra Hospital ED in August 2019 complaining of breathlessness, according to inquest findings.
She had a history of rheumatoid arthritis, arrhythmia, hypertension and immunosuppression.
The emergency medicine registrar took her history and correctly noted her prescriptions for propranolol 40mg, three times daily, and verapamil twice daily — 240mg in the morning and 120mg at night.
