This archive report was first published on 8 July 2020.
Nine common medication errors: How they happen and how to avoid them ¶
Published on July 8, 2020
Medication errors can be deadly, especially for children. Dr. Jane Mate, a consultant pediatrician at MP Shah Hospital, shares six common mistakes parents make when giving their children medicine and how to avoid them.
Accidents happen, and sometimes they can be fatal. According to Dr. Jane Mate, a consultant pediatrician at MP Shah Hospital, every month, the hospital receives between three to four patients for emergencies related to accidental medicine overdose.
“About half of those cases lead to inpatient hospitalisation,” Dr. Mate says. “This would mean that they are severe in nature.”
One such incident involved an 18-month-old toddler who overdosed on Calpol, a common painkiller syrup. The toddler's mother had left a bottle of Calpol open, and the child drank the entire bottle.
“The boy took the bottle and drank it out,” Dr. Mate says. “It was a good call that the mother rushed the baby to the hospital. Such an overdose can be deadly.”
Dr. Mate notes that medicine can be poisonous to the body if not administered according to prescription. The two organs most affected by medicine are the liver and the kidney. Majority (about 95 per cent) of emergency cases involving medicine poisonings are related to overdosing.
Here are six common mistakes parents make when giving their children medicine and how to avoid them:
- Leaving medicine within a child’s reach
- Frequency error
- Overdosing past daily limit
- Dosage by age and weight
- Wrong instrumentation
- Over the counter drugs
Dr. Mate advises parents to never leave their child with easy access to medicine and to keep medicine under lock and key at all times.
She also notes that parents should consider the child’s weight when administering medication, as two children of the same age but different weights cannot be given the same dosage.
Furthermore, Dr. Mate emphasizes the importance of using measuring cups, syringes, or spoons with calibration to administer medicine, as conventional spoons can be erroneous.
Lastly, Dr. Mate warns against the dangers of over-the-counter drugs, which can be prone to abuse.
