Nurse who 'misread' notes sacked after pensioner dies from massive insulin overdose

[Northerner]

A nurse has been sacked after mistakenly giving a pensioner an insulin overdose - ten times the recommended amount, that eventually led to her death.
District nurse Helen Burke was fired by NHS Trafford for gross misconduct following the death of 89-year-old Nellie Worrall.
Despite admitting the blunder, Burke will not face legal action after prosecutors ruled there was insufficient evidence against her.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-pensioner-dies-massive-insulin-overdose.html

 

[HOBIE]

A sad storey & nobody wins ? As an electrician what would happen to me if i wired someones elecky to 10,000v ? I hope this storey is read by 100% of staff. 🙄

 

[Northerner]

A sad storey & nobody wins ? As an electrician what would happen to me if i wired someones elecky to 10,000v ? I hope this storey is read by 100% of staff. 🙄

I think one of the worst aspects is that she knew she had made a mistake but didn't call an ambulance and just went on seeing her other patients!

 

[Copepod]

Electrician's materials only come in certain voltages, ampages etc and are usually colour coded or have speciific connectors so you can't connect eg DC with AC.

Insulin should only be administered in syringes marked with 100 units to 1ml (ie 0.01ml or 1 unit), not with other syringes which are marked with divisions of 1/10th of 1ml ie 0.1ml.

However, both professional electricians and registered nurses should act to the standards expected in their profession, which includes preventing errors before they happen, admitting to mistakes as soon as realised and doing the right things to counteract errors.

Insulin is relatively unusual in that it can be given as eg 6 and 60 units (the first being ten times the other) and both could be correct, but for different patients, but if given the wrong way round, a ten times overdose would kill if not acted to correct very soon eg with food and / or glucose drip