Mmr & boosters nurse unsure which went wrong!

[Jojogreeneyes]

Hi ladies I hope you can advise please? I took my twin sons for their 13 month MMR and boosters yesterday but during one injection one of my boys moved a little and the nurse slipped and the dose was only partly was injected.

That was bad enough but she wasn't sure which of the 3 it was !!!

Has anyone had a similar experience and does a bit of the vaccine give protection? I've complained to the doctors and await their feedback I was Just so shocked and upset yesterday to think he may have to have all 3 again if we can establish that wont overload his system. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

No experience but I personally think that is terrible that she doesn't know which one she was administering? How is that possible?

Gosh that sounds like extremely bad practice, glad you have complained.
They are supposed to record the site of injection eg left leg and inject the two at different sites, so how she could not know is very worrying.

I wonder if, instead of vaccinating him again, they can check his antibody levels after a certain time and see if he is immune or not - before deciding whether to re-vaccinate. Worth asking the GP?

that is shocking - was there no label on that syringe? Your GP should get back to you ASAP and detail what to do, but this is just really poor practise. All vaccines should have come in individually labelled syringes and even if the nurse peeled the labels off for the documentation (which would be a bad idea to do before the shot), she should have been able to reconstruct which one it was.

One possibility would be to draw blood in a month and check your son's immune response to the shots given (all at their cost, obviously) and take it from there.

I am so sorry this happened to you/him!

Don't know if it is standard practise but there is always a nurse and a health visitor present whenever my ds's have had jabs. I would imagine it is to stop something like this happening.

I would complain very loudly.

I would be complaining loudly about this.
Whenever my dc had injections the nurse would repeat over and over the injection name, dose and expiry date.
It used to really make me wonder why but now I can see its incase of incidents like yours.

Thats terrible! I took my five for their mmr recently and the nurse was very careful to make sure it all went smoothly and was recorded properly ie the batch numbers etc.

I hope it gets resolved ok

Do you mean which of the MMR? Or do you mean she didn't know if it was MMR or a different booster?

If it was the MMR then it's not as if they are given separately so there is no way to know.

If it was between the MMR and the other jabs then the syringes are pre loaded and labeled so she should be able to just read the syringe.

Thanks for all your replies so helpful! It was the MMR or one of the boosters that she has mixed up the syringes were labelled correctly I even checked before hand to make sure that she was injecting the correct things I never imagined she wouldn't know what order she did them in. I've made a formal complaint in writing and the doctor has advised that the best course if action is to have the 2 injections again in 4 weeks time which I know I have to do but I am sick with dread over this. The doctor even suggested the same nurse did the repeat , you can imagine my response!!! To add to this the practice manager decided to say she understood that mums get 'tetchy' when their children have injections! I've complained about her too.

I did consider getting a blood test done to check his immunity but I think that sounds traumatic too ? I've also insisted that its a doctor that does the repeat. I'd hate for this to happen to anyone else.

Thanks again ladies and please all check and check again when your children have injections.

I don't want to distress you any more, but a couple of things spring to mind:

GP wouldn't be my first choice for giving the injections because GPs so rarely give injections these days. A nurse would, hopefully, be a bit "slicker" however I completely understand you don't want it to be the same nurse. Is there another nurse at the practice?

The blood test to check immunity would be just as distressing as an injection, yes. Arguably, a little more because it's not as quick. BUT. Immunisations can carry risks, yes they are rare, and for most people the benefits outweigh the risks, but even the 'acceptable' risks such as soreness at the site, high temp, joint pain, even febrile seizures could be avoided if he was found to be immune already.

Please ignore my opinion as freely as I offer it, if you are happy with the GPs advice I feel I would want to know he needed the vaccination, if it were my son.

I hope the practice respond to your written complaint with a satisfactory response as to how they will change their practice so that this can't happen again in future. If not, you can take it to the PCT.

I think you should check the immunity levels. You can buy a creme called Emla, they use this in the hospital to put venflauns in kids and for people who are scared of needles. This would numb the area so your DS wouldn't have to find it traumatic.

Why would you want a GP to do the second jab? I can understand why you might not want the same nurse but I would def be asking for a nurse not a GP.

Unfortunately these things happen but she should know which vacc she is injecting where and recording it - that's something the practice should be looking at. Each vac should be done in the same leg eg. MMR always right leg/arm and if more than one vacc in the same limb the same one is injected at the top and the same one below. That's really badly worded but you get what I mean?

This is exactly the sort of attitude (from your surgery's staff I mean) that so put many of us off mmr and dtp back in the nineties.

Thanks ladies I've asked for the GP as it was him or the same nurse which I thought wouldn't be great for anyone concerned. I'm also getting details from the public health authority regarding the safety of repeating the injections to double check.