A mother has shared a heartbreaking warning to all parents after her baby was hospitalized due to taking 10 times the dosage of his new epilepsy medication.
As reported by 7News, South Australian mother Jessica Smith's baby, Donald Mudge, was airlifted to a hospital in Adelaide after a mistake on a pharmacy label.
Smith revealed to the publication that on October 28, she gave her one-and-a-half-year-old baby boy his prescribed dosage, as stated in the package directions.
"Unfortunately, human error meant that 10ml was put on (the label) instead of 10mg or 1ml," the mother explained. "Within half an hour of his first dosage, he was asleep."
The concerned parent became extremely worried for her son by Monday (October 30) afternoon and decided to seek guidance from her baby's neurologist.
That's when she was informed that there was a mix-up in the medication's directions, and advised to take Donald to the hospital as soon as possible so he could be treated by medics.
Thankfully, Donald recovered from the "human error" and is "fantastic now," however, the mother has spoken out about the terrifying incident, describing the ordeal as "very concerning".
Smith disclosed to the outlet that her baby boy "lost mobility" so "he slept a lot," and revealed that medics had trouble "getting an IV in, so his veins were shutting down".
The mom also divulged that it took around 45 minutes and three different doctors to "try and get an IV line into him on Monday evening, for him to be flown to Adelaide".
While her baby boy is recuperating from the health scare, the doting mom wants to spread awareness about the alarming ordeal so that measures can be taken in order to prevent similar mistakes from happening to her or other parents in the future.
"The pharmacy board needs to step in and make sure that this can never happen again," she explained to 7News. "It needs to be a written rule that every label is checked by more than one set of eyes."
The mom added that while "human errors can occur," it is vital that prescribed medications with labels are examined by "two sets of eyes" so that blunders can be tackled before being given to a patient.
