AHS pledges review after five-day-old baby suffers IV ‘burn’ in Calgary hospital

Family shocked at newborn's IV issues A couple who took their newborn to the ACH says the treatment created even more problems. Stephanie Wiebe reports. *WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES*

When a set of new parents in Calgary took their newborn daughter to the Alberta Children’s Hospital for treatment, they expected to get the best of care but ended up with an issue that makes them wonder if she’ll ever fully recover.

Dharik Patel and his wife says they’ve been undergoing a lot of stress ever since the birth of their daughter, so much so that they haven’t even come up with a name for her.

“It was a difficult delivery; they had to use forceps, so there was a lot of bruising. She’s also had a lot of jaundice as well. There’s a lot of poking, she was already in a lot of pain for the first few days.”

A couple days later, after they’d taken the five-day-old girl home, they noticed that she was not feeding well and sleeping too much, so they knew something was very wrong.

“We decided to come in and it seems like once we came in, it doesn’t seem like it’s helping at all.”

Patel says that the nurses in the unit at the ACH told them that extra care would be taken with their baby and put an IV into her hand to help provide the infant with fluid.

At some point after that, the IV slipped out of the vessel and ended up in the tissue, resulting in fluid being deposited into their baby’s hand. The issue is called ‘IV burn’.

“It was completely swollen. There was fluid coming out of her skin. There are much fewer blisters now, but they were lots of blisters and it was just a painful experience for her and the whole family.”

Patel says that a number of doctors had seen his daughter while the IV was in and no one ended up seeing anything wrong with it, so he is concerned about a lack of education and training.

“This has happened before in the Alberta health system. Before it was worse but for my baby, it was lucky.”

A few months ago at the Stollery Hospital in Edmonton, a three-year-old girl developed sores on her hand because of a similar situation where her IV slipped out.

The Alberta Health Services says they are investigating what happened there and also what happened with the Patels’ daughter.

Dr. Francois Belanger, vice president of quality and Chief Medical Officer with the AHS, says that IV issues are rare but do happen in both adults and children.

“Up to six percent of adults and a little more common in children; up to 11 percent.”

Belanger says there is a procedure in place to monitor IVs in patients and a review process for when things go wrong.

“We have a formal process by which we do a review and we look at what has happened,” Belanger says. “We look at the associated factors and we look at ways which we can prevent similar incidents to occur in the future. That’s what we call a quality assurance review.”

He says that once the review is completed, it will result in recommendations put forward to hospitals to improve their practices.

Belanger also says that there is a review currently ongoing into the specific issue of IV infiltration at the ACH and the Stollery.

“I know the Alberta Children’s Hospital and the Stollery are embarking in a major initiative in terms of awareness of IV infiltration and education focused on training, monitoring and to ensure we pick up as early as possible anytime there is a complication from an IV that actually infiltrates the skin. That’s something that’s been in development for some time and something that we will definitely move forward with.”

He says that officials have reached out to the Patels to offer their apologies about the ordeal they’ve gone through and have also assured them they will get the answers they are looking for.

“We understand the family’s upset and our sympathies and our thoughts are with them and with their baby. We are ensuring that their baby gets the care that’s required and we apologize to the family with regards to the delay in speaking to them about the review that we are going to undertake. Once we have completed a review, the recommendations that come out of that will be shared with them as well.”

Patel is worried about the impact the IV injury will have on the rest of his daughter’s life.

“I don’t know if there is going to be a scar on her. I don’t know if the senses are going to be okay. Is there some damage inside? I don’t know and that’s the scary part.”

He also wants parents to know that they are their children’s best advocates when they are in the hospital.

“A lot of people just trust [medical staff]. I did that, I trusted them blindly to take good care of me. They generally do but obviously you need to be more careful, look for signs and keep an eye out. They’re all human beings and they make mistakes.”

Belanger says that that is one of the principles in place at the Alberta Children’s Hospital too.

“Parents are an integral part of the care of their children and we will continue with that principle moving forward.”

(With files from Stephanie Wiebe)