Quaid Twins Home For The Holidays?

Actor And Wife Optimistic About Newborns' Recovery From Overdose Of Blood Thinner

(CBS)  The newborn twins of actor Dennis Quaid and his wife are still in the intensive care unit of the Los Angeles hospital where they were administered an overdose of a blood thinning drug last week, according to a new report about what led to the children's hospitalization.

Jess Cagle, executive editor of People, said on The Early Show that Dennis and Kimberly Quaid have not been give a release date for the three-week-old babies, but a relative told the magazine that the couple is cautiously optimistic about their children's prognosis.

The twins, Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace, continue to recover in the neonatal intensive care unit at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

"According to Kimberly's brother, who we spoke to, who was very, very familiar with the situation, they're sort of being optimistic right now," Cagle said. "They're looking forward to Christmas. They're looking forward to getting the babies home."

Holding the babies at the hospital is difficult for the couple because the twins are hooked up to monitors and multiple IVs, Cagle said.

The twins were admitted to Cedars-Sinai to treat a staph infection that developed after they were originally discharged from a hospital after their birth, Cagle said. The source of the infection has yet to be determined.

Because patients receiving an IV are routinely given a blood thinner so that the vein that the IV is in won't clot, the twins were given a dosage of Heparin -- but it was 1,000 times higher than a regular dosage for an infant.

"The hospital has been very good about saying yes, this happened. It was a preventable error. We are making sure we find out exactly what went wrong," explained Cagle.

The long-term effects of the medical mistake remain unclear; too much Heparin can cause major internal bleeding, Cagle added. Three infants in an Indianapolis hospital died after a 2006 Heparin overdose.

Although the twins are the couple's biological children, they had a gestational carrier, otherwise known as a surrogate mother, because Kimberly Quaid suffered a series of miscarriages, Cagle said.

"(It) was a very difficult time (for the Quaids)," Cagle said. "And then they found the surrogate. She had a miscarriage, as well, so they tried so hard to have these children."

[rubokk7]

I am hear to say this is a compelling reason for machine readable technology deployment right down to the individual unit dose package. One would thing that neonates would be accorded VIP treatment in a hospital and not just a famous person''s children- all neonates.This lack of concern to check and double check dosing of medications prior to administration especially for the most vulnerable of our society is sickening. There is no excuse for the carelessnes and that is why we need machines to double check what our healthcare workers do.Bar Codes and RFID tags are needed on everything, nurses need scanners, patients need to know their safety comes first. Parents need to know their children are safe in the hands of the care giver. My heart goes out to these kids and their parents!
RN