What Could Have Gone Wrong? It Was Only A Blood Transfusion.
You have multiple cases on your desk, one of which is a case concerning a woman who passed away in the hospital after receiving a blood transfusion. The family claims that the hospital gave the wrong blood. Do you know what the standard of care is for blood administration? If the standard of care was followed, would you be able to understand the medical information in the chart concerning various transfusion reactions? Could you be sure that it was an error on the part of the medical staff that caused the death, or was it a component of the blood itself? Was it the patient’s own body reacting to a properly administered blood transfusion that caused the death?
As a Criminal Attorney, you have a case on your desk involving a gunshot wound to the right side of the chest, which grazed the person’s side and broke a rib but did not enter the chest cavity. Your client lost 300 ml of blood at the scene. On arrival to the hospital, she is noted to be anemic. The patient has a lung contusion from the broken rib but no other internal injuries are present. She is administered two units of blood. She dies six hours later. Diagnosis: Acute Lung Injury. Was the patient’s demise due to the gunshot wound? Could it have been the blood transfusion that caused the patient’s death? Could you use some help understanding the lab work and medical data indicating how and when the patient’s condition was deteriorating so you could pinpoint the facts and know for sure if they were directly related to the gunshot wound? Would it be a bad thing to be at trail and find out that an unrelated medical condition was the cause of the patients low blood count and not the blood loss from the gun shot wound? Most likely.
Blood transfusions are a life-saving measure for anyone with a low hemoglobin/ hematocrit level due to hemorrhage and anemia caused by various disease states. Blood transfusions, however, are not benign. What is clearly not understood by the general public is the fact that blood transfusions are actually a tissue transplantation with complex consequences for the recipient. Many adverse events can accompany a blood transfusion that is not related to the human error of a healthcare professional. The following is a list of complications that can occur from Blood Transfusions:
- Allergic Reactions
- Acute Hemolytic Transfusion Reactions
- Febrile Non-Hemolytic Transfusion Reactions
- Transfusion Related Acute Lung Injury (TRALI)
- Transfusion Related Sepsis
- Acute Hypotensive Transfusion Reaction
- Diffuse Coagulation Derangement
- Non- Immune Hemolytic Reaction
- Citrate Toxicity and Hyperkalemia (increased potassium level)
- Hypothermia and Air Embolism
- Storage Lesion associated with the blood bank
- Iron Overload
- Graft vs. Host Disease
- Transfusion Associated Cardiac Overload (TACO)
Each of the above-listed complications has various causes and tissue-altering effects. Let a legal nurse consultant assist you in understanding blood transfusion-related information. If you have a case involving a blood transfusion and would like some help understanding the medical facts, visit us at clearchoicemlc.com.
