To put in a claim for medical negligence.

[Beanz2022]

Long story short - went in for c section on the 7th, all successful and baby fine, I was fine. on the 8th I was prescribed a very strong ibruprofen suppository, and then given another strong ibruprofen tablet around an hour later when the space in between Both
of these things should have been 12 hours. I started to vomit and felt dizzy and very nauseas when it happened (at this point didn’t realise what had actually happened - just thought they were giving me the prescribed doses) and did wonder why I started to feel unwell.

responsible midwife came to my bedside around 8 hours later and profusely apologised and admitted to what she had done.

I sat there and I was in shock and just accepted he apologies.

now I’ve actually let it sink in… this could have been a lot worse and could have been my newborn or another baby it happened to.

I also googled symptoms and, and it could be fatal, but I appear to have gotten off lightly with some minor sickness and nausea and dizziness.

I have huge medical anxiety anyway but this has tipped me over the edge.

patient experience nurse came round this morning, and just on her general rounds
and I explained to her what happened and she was just as shocked and doesn’t understand how it happened and has let me log an official complaint!

shall I make a claim or leave it alone?

Thanks

Unfortunately as the midwives are humans mistakes happen. Thank god this wasn’t a mistake which caused too much harm and you are ok. Your symptoms sounds horrible but they were short lasting.
The mistake has been spotted early. The midwife has apologised and if patient safety are already aware she has reported her mistake. It will be investigated and the hospital will look at how to prevent it happening again. Refresher training for the midwife and for who ever prescribed the drug twice. Anyone who was involved. They will look at the computer systems to see if they can prevent a double dose happening again. You will potentially get a formal duty of candour letter with another apology. Other than that any more that you do will just waste your time and theirs. You are not entitled to any compensation for a mistake which caused minimal issues. The midwife involved will no doubt be really upset and learn from this near miss and hopefully there will be an adaptation to prevent a reoccurrence for anyone else.

Congratulations on your new baby @Beanz2022 I'm sorry that your first few days as Mum to him or her have been impacted by this event. I think some of the responses here have been a little harsh. I think most people feel a bit vulnerable when they have just given birth, or after major surgery. You've just done both, and I see you also suffer from health anxiety, so it's not surprising you're finding this stressful.
But as others have said, no, you wouldn't have a claim for compensation, because in order to do that you'd need to demonstrate that harm has occurred and that the harm was caused by the error. Lots of people feel nauseous and dizzy after surgery so you'd find it difficult to prove that the drug error was the cause of your symptoms, and even if it was, your symptoms were transient and fully resolved. Compensation is mainly awarded to cover financial losses - loss of earnings, cost of ongoing care etc. There is an element for pain and suffering but to be honest it's not much, even when people have significant injuries. I don't think any solicitor worth their salt would take on this case, and definitely not on a "no win no fee" basis, so you would almost certainly be wasting your time and money by going down a legal route.
However, you are right that this is an error which shouldn't have happened and it should be investigated. As PP's have said, this has almost certainly already been reported via whatever incident reporting system the Trust uses, and that should trigger an investigation. I would ask to talk to the ward manager to ensure that has occurred and if you are not happy, contact PALS for support.
But most importantly, please try not to worry too much. It sounds like you've probably had a dicolfenac suppository and oral ibuprofen, both at standard dose but too close together. No, it should not have happened but it is highly unlikely to cause any harm. Drugs of this group can be harmful in overdose and yes, even fatal on rare occasions but you need a lot more than 2 doses too close together before you get into that kind of territory. I took double the dose of ibuprofen for about 2 days after an operation last year as my DH had bought 400mg tablets and I always get 200mg ones and I didn't notice. It was stupid and I was cross with myself but it did no harm. If what happened to you had happened to me in hospital, I would be annoyed and would expect the cause of the error to be investigated but I wouldn't be worried about the effects. Do follow it up, but try not to dwell on things to much, and enjoy your baby.

I think your medical anxiety has got the better of you. It sounds like you didn't suffer any major side effects and it certainly wasn't fatal. To find out whether you could've come to harm you should've googled the overdose dosages, not the side effects. It's pretty unlikely that they were giving you a suppository and tablet of 50% of the fatal dose

So you had a c section on the 7 January?

You have a newborn and this is what you are posting about on the 9 January?

You received and apology and of course what you went through was far from pleasant but I just think you’re priorities need some consideration 😬

you don’t need to complain to ensure steps are taken for it not to happen again. It’ll be written up as a significant event. The staff concerned may have additional training, or may be disciplined, depending on the reasons for the error. It’ll be discussed and documented. Unless the staff member at fault was drunk , or can be shown to have been reckless in his/her behaviour, it’s a simple case of human error. And unless you have lasting adverse effects, you won’t get any money.

An isolated overdose of 1400-1800mg of ibuprofen rectally in an adult is not going to give you toxic effects. I think your symptoms are of another cause (fatigue, blood loss, anxiety, overly hot maternity ward).

The bar is high for pay outs, and this doesn’t come close

Hi @Beanz2022, I think your immediate focus on making a claim has led to you getting a very unsympathetic response here. Which is a bit of a shame as what happened to you is actually fairly serious.

I think @Strangesally20 has given some very good information and advice.

What I would add is that your reaction is of course understandable. You're in a very vulnerable position as an in-patient, doubly so post-cs and with a newborn, and something like this will inevitably leave you feeling uneasy and knock your confidence in the care that you're receiving.

I would definitely make sure that they have completed a Datix incident report, as that will allow the service to review their processes and carry out a bit of a risk assessment to make sure something like this won't happen again. Which really is the main thing here!

If you're feeling rattled, I think it's also reasonable for you to be seen by the consultant in charge of your ward, for reassurance and to chat through what happened from a clinical/health point of view.

I hope you feel better soon and congratulations on your new arrival!

I might remember incorrectly. But a suppository is 800mg. A strong tablet is 400mg.
Which is 1200mg.
The max 24 hour poisons dose is 2400mg.
I'm not sure this is a viable claim for negligence here.

Congratulations on your baby, what are you doing about your health anxiety? Hopefully you are not seeking financial compensation?

Your choice. Had bad experience also but decided this end to leave it. 1 in 11 women in Chad at the time died in childbirth and didn’t want to take more £s away from NHS. Tough job, things can and do go wrong and other option is to formally complain.

I’m shocked at some of the responses here. I think you should complain about this OP. Of course human error happens, and it doesn’t sound like you’re asking for financial compensation, so what is wrong with flagging your upset about this? You can write to PALS and explain clearly what happened.

There was a human error with the care of my DC1 when they were a few days old. It had a great impact on me, even though I could be sympathetic that the midwives were under pressure and under staffed. That does not mean that this should go unacknowledged.

This.

Brufen is well tolerated, and the therapeutic index is high.

considering the French prescribe 40mg/kg to babies as therapeutic it’s unlikely you’ve even exceeded a therapeutic dose.

She’s had an apology. she won’t get much more - there’s minimal timescales to claim for and minimal effects. What more do you think she will get?

I collapsed and was taken to hospital a few years ago. They totally missed what was happening, a nurse recorded my pain level as 0 out of 10 by mistake instead of 9 and then instead of doing the necessary scan, the equipment was wheeled in and later removed without it being done. I was sent home with the implication I was wasting time, and ended up having emergency surgery a few days later after another collapse. I made a complaint because I wanted there to be learning from it, but it would not have crossed my mind to sue. I ended up being ok, so why would I? I think it is horrible to go looking for money in this situation when an apology has already been made - if I had gotten one I would not have even put in my complaint.

On what basis do you think you have a ‘claim’? A claim for what? It’s actually laughable.

I assume you had a PR diclofenac in theatre and then a further oral ibuprofen in recovery or the ward. A mistake, but very far from a near death experience. Your adverse side effects were far more likely from the much stronger concoction of drugs given during a spinal.

Enjoy your newborn and stop trying to bag some money where it’s absolutely not going to be given, and rightly so.

You are absolutely entitled to complain to PALS and know that that midwife will never make that mistake again. Unfortunately human error is a real thing.

As for making a claim...sorry to burst your bubble hun but you ent getting jack shit.

The exact same thing happened to me OP after surgery and the nurse in recovery was really upset at her mistake.

I laughed and told her I didn't care as I felt great and as it was ibuprofen the harm was probably very limited. Perhaps it was the extra pain meds but I really didn't care and haven't even thought of it since until now.

I can't imagine being so pissed off about a mistake that has caused zero harm that I'd go through the hassle of trying to claim some compo.

Like @StephensLass1977 I've had a 4 figure sum from a medical negligence claim for nearly dying. The hospital admitted liability immediately, I had quantifiable losses and ongoing issues from the negligence years later. Still took 5 years to get not that much money! Complain, but it's not worth trying for compensation.

Doubtful two doses of Ibuprofen would cause that reaction. What does 'strong dose' actually mean, they wouldn't have given you more than 400mg. It really is no big deal, you probably felt unwell as you'd just given birth. Can almost guarantee it wasn't the Ibuprofen. You can give 600mg in one dose for migraine.

I used to work in medical negligence, dealing with cases like delayed cancer diagnosis, stillbirths, and catastrophic brain injuries.
I can guarantee that you have no basis for a claim, as there is no value to your claim. You haven't been out of pocket, unable to work, or suffered any lasting (think years of) pain and suffering.

This shouldn't have happened, but medical staff are not robots. With the best will in the world, people make mistakes.
I promise you that this nurse will be absolutely horrified by her mistake, and I'm sure will never make the same one again.

Please just be glad that you and your newborn are both here and well, and that neither of you suffered something more serious, like one those catastrophic brain injuries that I mentioned.