Spanish
Athens.- A 62-year-old woman died this Wednesday after receiving the wrong blood transfusion in a public hospital in Athens due to the action of a nursing assistant who had worked 16 hours straight, reports the public broadcaster ERT.
The doctors at the 'Tzaneio' hospital, where the patient had been in intensive care for a month, declared her brain death today after performing the corresponding diagnostic tests. The deceased had received the blood transfusion a month ago, hours after being admitted to the aforementioned clinic with a mild cerebral hemorrhage, which was described as a "minor neurological incident" By mistake, a nursing assistant got confused and gave her a blood type that was intended for another patient and was of a type incompatible with hers. As a result, the woman suffered multiple strokes and multiple organ failure. Doctors operated on her to relieve the resulting cerebral congestion. Since then, she remained in the intensive care unit.You may be interested in: A Jehovah's Witness in the Strasbourg Court for a transfusion in Madrid
The Quality Assurance Organization of Healthcare (ODIPY) has denounced multiple violations of the medical protocol by the hospital in this case. Among the infractions, it is highlighted that the assistant nurse was not under the supervision of a doctor or a senior nurse, as required by the regulations, and attention is drawn to the breakdown of the clinic's printer that prevented nurses from printing patient identification bracelets. The nurses on the first shift did not communicate adequately with the others and gave incorrect numbers to several patients of the clinic to the other professionals, which explains the confusion that led to the serious error, concluded the OPDIPY when investigating the facts. Furthermore, the president of the Association of Doctors of Public Hospitals of Athens and Piraeus (EINAP), Yorgos Sideris, revealed that "due to staff shortages" and under the pretext that "the shift can be completed" the assistant nurse had worked 16 hours in a single day, which is "against the law and common sense". The case has revived public discontent over the deterioration of the quality of public medical care in Greece. The Greek left-wing opposition, as well as various associations of doctors and nurses, have been asking the Government for years to hire more permanent medical staff in public hospitals.
