Implication of having two 'HIB' jabs, by mistake...

[LDN1]

My DD was on schedule for all of her jabs. We did not have them all done on one day, as is increasingly, the trend I was told.

We still had HIB and MMR outstanding. For the MMR, we were looking at the option of single dose MMR, administered at a private clinic in Manchester.

And so, we attended the doctors for just the HIB to be done. The old, retirement age, nurse who was visibly tired gave our DD her jab (what we thought was HIB) and off we went.

40 minutes later, the nurse calls us and says that she gave the wrong jab: she gave the MMR and not the HIB... and she is sorry / genuine mistake / long day / blah blah. That's another story which I won't go in to.

So... we are left in a situation where the nurse is sure she gave the MMR and not the HIB - so we need to book DD for the HIB.

I asked 'how sure are you it was the MMR? What if it WAS the HIB and we then administer another HIB... what are the implications, health wise, of two HIB jabs?

She says she is confident it was the MMR. And offers nothing else.

Anyway. I have just tried to deal with this on a practical level. I have asked over and over... what are the implications of having two HIB jabs? They will not answer the question. They literally will not answer it and I am guessing it's because they do not want to etch in stone, an answer that they'd be worried comes back to haunt them.

For all I know, there would be no issue, having two HIB jabs... I just would like to know. The practice has now simply passed the buck and referred us to a local hospital for a meeting to find out the answer to my question.

I am going to get a meeting booked but in the meantime, does anyone have any knowledge or experience of this type of situation? And also, any idea the implication of having two HIB jabs?

Retired nurse here who used to run immunisation clinics. First of all your attitude about the nurse is awful. What has her age got to do with it?? Mistakes happen and this is one that won't have any effects for your child. I understand you are anxious about any adverse effects but your baby will be fine.

Just to add there are no single vaccines for mumps so you can't get that done privately unless things have changed very recently. MMR is really important so it's good your child has had it. Please ensure she gets the booster too when it's due. My DD had 3 MMRs because there was a measles outbreak locally and it was recommended she had her first at 9 months rather than 12/13 months.

Can’t imagine much impact as tbh it’s a vaccine - it’s just trying to provoke an immune reaction

It’s not the same as a drug where you would be concerned about overdose etc if too much is taken

If you contact the manufacture of the HIB that your GP surgery uses they should be able to answer with what data they have. Usually they test out different doses and schedules in trials to work out the best one and will have "overdose" information.

I don't think there'd be any issue. I'd be more concerned about her not having had MMR if they got what they told you wrong.

I think it's pretty poor practice though. Apart from anything else, you hadn't consented to the jab she was given, or been properly informed about the side effects. What if it had been one of the jabs you're supposed to give Calpol after and you hadn't known? What if she'd had a known allergy to one of the ingredients of the jab she was given? I don't think saying, "Mistakes happen," is good enough as a response to that.

I would also be concerned about her possibly not having the MMR as you seem to have some doubt. There must be some sort of tracing and serial numbers of these vaccines to see what was dosed to who, that needs to be checked.

They'd be sure because it has the name on the vial and the serial number.

Well babies have 3 doses of Hib before they’re 1, as part of the 6 in 1 jab.

The dose at 12 months is combined Hib/MenC. There is no single Hib vaccine available.

If she had MMR instead of Menitorix (Hib/MenC) then she needs Menitorix. If she had it twice it wouldn’t harm her (babies used to get 2 doses of MenC anyway, and the extra Hib won’t harm.

She’s better off having MMR than single vaccines anyway, I believe there’s no single mumps vaccine available in the UK apart from unlicensed ?Indian imports.

Having said all that the surgery should be carrying out an adverse event incident report and respond to your queries. That’s poor.

They usually take the little sticker off and put it in the red book so they can check it's mmr

She’ll know it was MMR. She’ll have kept the vial and recorded it with the batch name, number and expiry date in the records.

Mistakes happen - not often, but they do. The childhood immunisation schedule is incredibly complex and when parents want them out of sync or separated it can get confusing. No excuse, she should have checked and double checked. However there is a process to follow regarding vaccine errors, they might not respond to you until it’s been followed.

I was always shown the packet/phial of the vaccine and the expiry date printed on it before every vaccine my DCs received, each in turn if there was more than one happening. Do they not do that anymore?

That could be dangerous. Why did she have the vaccine out in the first place?

Some children are allergic to certain vaccines.

If it were me my attitude would be a thousand times worse than the op’s. She’s injected the wrong drug into her fucking child. I don’t care what situation led to it, or how mild or serious the outcome will be for the child, it shouldn’t have happened and I’d be reporting this to the appropriate body.

This attitude is very strange. The nurse made a mistake, a massive mistake. Whether the mistake causes long term damage or not is irrelevant, they injected the wrong drug into a child.

The OP has every right to be fuming, and to be honest, I'd have described the nurse as a hell of a lot worse.

To read this, and automatically defend the occupation because you are sensitive to it is just wrong. The nurse made a massive mistake and OP is rightly so annoyed.

I work in a vaccination clinic and this would have to be datix (incident) recorded. I can understand why you’re upset and I hope you get some answers soon.

To answer everyone's questions. The age was mentioned as the PRACTICE MANAGER HIMSELF, stated she is retirement age and should probably be thinking of stopping now.

She was visibly tired and 'done in' on the day.

That's why age was mentioned. Sorry this offended you.

Regarding the red book: the nurse actually filled in the HIB line - but missed off any details... a suggestion it dawned on her at the time, thats she'd given the wrong jab. We saw this later on at home. It also adds to our worries, 'how sure is she it was the MMR jab?'

So now the red book is messed up.

I'm glad to see others would be fuming. I've tried to hold it together and be pragmatic but I will say that it's been reported to the powers that be, because it's not good enough. Especially as they simply won't give us an answer on the implications of two HIB jabs. I asked quite honestly about this, genuinely concerned, and wanted a simple answer... they won't give one. So now, more messing around and a trip to the hospital for an answer, as requested by the practice at fault.

Ds accidentally had three mmrs they think 🤔 the ONE time I sent my ex husband to do the vaccine with one of the three children we had in the house he fucked up forgot his book and it was recorded wrong it took me ages to resolve it and he may or may not have had three lots of MMR no-one knows

The batch numbers of the HIB and MMR are different. When she entered the MRi batch number as Hib record the computer will not accept it.

@LDN1 I suspect that none of the clinicians know the answer to what the implications of having two doses of HIB are, and that this is why you are finding it difficult to get a direct answer. @AHobbyaweek 's suggestion to contact the manufacturer makes sense; the manufacturer may also appreciate knowing about the potential error in the dosing (because if this is a frequently reported concern they may look into altering the packaging an so on).

Nurse had both jabs at the ready before we even entered the room, must have gone for closest needle, on her trolley, at the time / jabbed the wrong needle / and then filled in half of the HIB line in the red book. Why not fill it all in if you genuinely though it was the HIB that you'd just given?

Just a mess and scam. These people are pathetic IMO, it's a job and mistakes will happen but this seems such a simple thing to get right. It's literally her job and she couldn't get it right.

All noted. Many thanks.

If she knew then why would she say she is "sure" rather than she "knows" because she did what you said?

You can avoid this in future by asking for the batch number of each injection given each time you have one. This will be useful if you ever have to report anything to the yellow card system or apply for vaccine injury compensation.

Why did you just go to the gps for the vaccines? Instead of going privately? Not digging, just curious