Italy authorities probe hospital deaths; switched anesthesia and oxygen tubes could be factor
ROME (AP) -- A 73-year-old woman died in an Italian hospital because tubes carrying oxygen and anesthesia were switched, and authorities were investigating whether the error was responsible for as many as seven other recent deaths, officials and news reports said Saturday.
Some 21 people have been treated in the Castellaneta hospital's coronary intensive care unit since it opened on April 20. Eight of them died.
Hospital officials first discovered a problem there Friday, after the woman, who was being treated for a relatively minor heart arrhythmia, was given what doctors thought was oxygen to help her breathe. But "her ability to breathe, rather than improving, worsened," Dr. Cosimo Turi, health director of the hospital in Taranto, southern Italy, told Sky TG24.
"The only plausible explanation we can provide is that there could have been a switch in the derivation of the pipes, so that rather than being connected to oxygen they were connected to nitrogen protoxide," he said.
The head of the local health department, Marco Urago, said the presence of the anesthesia in the oxygen tubes was "caused by an erroneous connection" of the pipes during construction.
Health Minister Livia Turco ordered an investigation into the company that installed the pipes, Ossitalia srl, and called for checks at other hospitals where its machinery was in use.
The hospital's coronary chief, Dr. Antonio Scarcia, was quoted in several newspapers as saying the other cases involved elderly patients with much more serious heart problems, and that those deaths were believed to have been natural.
Prosecutor Mario Barruffa was investigating possible multiple manslaughter charges.
"We have to determine who did the testing of the machinery and who used it, and then, if there were omissions or negligence, imprudence or inexperience," the ANSA news agency quoted him as saying.
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