Filipina Nurse Mixed Up Blood Transfusion; Faces Jail for Killing Pensioner in UK
A Filipina nurse is facing a jail sentence for killing a pensioner after she mixed up his name with another patient and gave him the wrong blood transfusion.
Lea Ledesma, 48, gave Ali Huseyin, 76, AB-type blood meant for Irfan Hussain, 37, who was blood group O, at London Heart Hospital in Marylebone, reported Daily Mail.
Doctors reportedly ordered the transfusion when the pensioner lost blood from his chest drain at 9:30 am after a successful heart bypass the day before.
Ledesma accidentally jotted down Hussain’s patient number on her hand instead of Huseyin’s, Southwark Crown Court heard.
She then failed to carry out further checks to identify her ‘series of mistakes,’ the report said.
The experienced nurse had spotted that the details did not match but went ahead with the transfusion and triggered a fatal heart attack, said the news portal.
A team of doctors and nurses rushed to help Huseyin but only discovered he had been given the wrong blood after Ledesma gave another nurse Hussain’s patient number.
A jury of eight men and four women have found Ledesma guilty of manslaughter by a majority of ten to two after just over seven hours of deliberations.
Jurors heard that nurses were only assigned to one patient on the intensive care ward, which had a system of safeguards in place so patients could be identified properly.
Ledesma reportedly jotted Hussain’s eight-digit patient number on her hand without taking any other documentation with her before getting the blood.
She then failed to notice the error when the dispensing machine printed out a receipt confirming the unit dispatched, said the news portal.
Huseyin had two successful blood transfusions – one from Ledesma and one from a night nurse – following his operation.
Doctor Guangiuseppe Cappabianca, who ordered the transfusion, was quoted as saying that he did not make a written prescription to say the patient needed O-type blood because there was already one in place.
He reportedly said it is ‘very common to have a prescription that is repeatable’, adding: ‘Given that the nurse was only looking after that patient there was no possibility to mismatch with somebody else.
“She was given only one patient and the procedure to collect the right unit of blood was independent from the prescription.”
“Since there was already blood transfusion ongoing at 8 am when I arrived I said to give another unit of blood. The moment the nurse is saying there’s no prescription she should have requested a prescription,” Daily Mail quoted him as saying.
(Source: FilipinoTimes.ae)