CHAPTER 349: 349 INFUSION TUBE

(Thanks to my friends Silence529, Flowing Year Ink, Taotao1974999, perdu la vie, Book Friend 20170929121429281, Xue Ziqi, and God Appears for their encouraging monthly tickets!)

Liu Banxia, together with personnel from the Medical Affairs Department, arrived at the surveillance room and pulled up the lobby’s surveillance footage. Although the picture wasn’t particularly clear, they could still make a judgment.

Zhou Qian first verified the patient’s name and hung the IV medication. She carefully expelled the air from the IV tube. After securing the needle in the patient, she indeed adjusted the flow regulator.

However, because they were somewhat distant, it was impossible to see how she adjusted the regulator. Then, she began attending to other patients’ IVs.

And the patient? Lying in bed and feeling a bit bored, he started playing with his cellphone.

At the twenty-fourth minute, the patient had a noticeable reaction, waving at Zhou Qian who wasn’t far away. Then Zhou Qian, realizing something was wrong, pulled out the needle and called for Liu Banxia.

Throughout the entire infusion process, no one else had touched the flow regulator—neither Zhou Qian nor the patient.

Liu Banxia sighed. This is a difficult situation to handle. From the surveillance footage alone, Zhou Qian was undoubtedly the primary responsible party.

"Sister Li, please stay here with her for a while. I’ve already notified the Medical Affairs Department, and we’ll wait here for the results," Liu Banxia said after returning to the break room.

Zhou Li looked as if she wanted to say something but ultimately remained silent. She understood that Liu Banxia was withholding information, likely because the surveillance video was unfavorable to Zhou Qian.

After waiting for more than half an hour, Chen from the Medical Affairs Department came downstairs.

"What’s the situation?" Liu Banxia asked.

"The patient requests a full physical examination. If no excessive damage has been done to his body, he demands compensation of one hundred thousand. If the examination reveals any injury caused by the medication, then we’ll have to assess the situation further," Chen said.

"He’s asking for quite a lot," Liu Banxia grimaced.

"Seal the medical records for now. And the IV set has been sealed as well, right?" Chen asked.

Liu Banxia nodded and handed Chen the nearby sealed bag containing the IV set and remaining medication.

"Banxia, what should we do?" Zhou Li asked.

"I’ll think about it," Liu Banxia said after a moment.

"Zhou Qian, recall carefully. How did you operate the flow regulator when you were adjusting it? Could you have been distracted and failed to set it correctly?"

"Dr. Liu, that’s impossible. Most patients today were prescribed Levofloxacin. I really did adjust it correctly," Zhou Qian said anxiously.

Liu Banxia nodded.

To a trained nurse, adjusting an IV set’s flow regulator should be instinctive. Since she had performed the action, unless it was intentional, she wouldn’t have made a mistake.

No one else had touched that IV set. If Zhou Qian really hadn’t made a mistake, had they encountered a supernatural event?

Seeing Liu Banxia remain silent, Zhou Qian started crying again. If she were blamed for this incident, what would become of her?

Liu Banxia muttered, "Could the flow regulator have moved on its own?"

"Er... Banxia, is that possible?" Zhou Li asked, astonished.

"I don’t know. Although it seems unlikely, there’s no other explanation," Liu Banxia said.

"I just reviewed the surveillance footage; apart from Zhou Qian, no one else touched it. I’m thinking this because we’d previously complained to the manufacturer about these IV sets having excessively thin outer packaging."

"Anyway, these IV sets are much worse than the ones we used before. I don’t know if they hadn’t been diligent in this aspect either, which led to a rebound effect."

"Let’s do this, Sister Li: get ten IV sets and some large bottles of saline. We’ll test them first. We can’t let Zhou Qian be blamed so unclearly."

"Also, Zhou Qian, don’t blame Doctor Xu. I asked him to step away temporarily. After all, one of you handled the patient intake, and the other administered the IV."

Zhou Qian wiped her tears and nodded.

Zhou Li didn’t delay. Although Liu Banxia’s speculation sounded a bit far-fetched, it was still a possibility. Deep down, she truly didn’t believe Zhou Qian would make such an operational error; this was someone she had personally trained.

"Banxia, any news?" Xu Hui walked in just as Zhou Li was getting the IV sets.

"The patient’s initial compensation demand is one hundred thousand. He also needs to undergo a thorough examination. If any injury is found related to an adverse drug reaction, he’ll demand more money," Liu Banxia said.

"We’re waiting to conduct an experiment right now, to see if it’s possible the IV set had malfunctioned on its own. I don’t believe our nurses would make such a basic mistake."

Xu Hui nodded. "We’ll do it together."

This kind of test, though simple, took time. The first ten IV sets showed no issues, which made Liu Banxia a bit anxious. It seems my initial thought was indeed too outlandish.

"Sister Li, get some more. Let’s continue testing. First, check the flow regulators, then conduct the tests. Get a whole box ready," Liu Banxia said.

Zhou Li said nothing and went straight out.

In fact, the IV set that ideally should be tested was the one that had been sealed. But the situation was complicated now; it had to remain sealed, so they weren’t allowed to test it.

This time, Zhou Qian wasn’t asked to make the adjustments. Instead, Liu Banxia did it himself. He wanted to feel the resistance of the regulators with his own hands.

And indeed, upon careful examination, he did perceive a difference. Some regulators genuinely had weaker resistance. Looking closely, the craftsmanship also seemed subpar.

This piqued Liu Banxia’s interest. He dropped everything else and sat on the bed, opening bags and feeling the resistance of the regulators. There were five hundred in the box, and Liu Banxia wasn’t concerned about the expense now.

After careful inspection, he selected the eight regulators with the least resistance from the box and then began the IV drip test.

People outside knew an incident had just occurred in the Emergency Center, but no one dared to disturb them. Everyone understood that if this issue were pursued, it wouldn’t just be a matter of compensation.

The Emergency Center was already under intense scrutiny, and the burden of this chain of responsibility would be hard to bear.

They waited and waited. It was past four o’clock in the afternoon when Liu Banxia finally stepped out of the break room, holding three IV sets, a bright smile on his face.

"Teacher Liu, what happened?" Xu Yino asked.

"If you want to know what happened next, Sister Li will explain. I need to go to the Medical Affairs Department; I don’t have time right now," Liu Banxia said before hurrying off towards the Medical Affairs Department.

I’m really relieved, Liu Banxia thought. This has nothing to do with our department. If they want to assign blame, they should go after the supplier.

Arriving at the Medical Affairs Department, he found everyone there discussing today’s incident. They needed to at least decide on a course of action before reporting to their superiors.

"Dr. Liu, you’re here just in time. After our preliminary discussion, we’ve decided we need to temporarily suspend the nurse involved in today’s incident," Director Wu said.

"There’s no need for that. Look at these three IV sets. After being hung, there’s a chance of a rebound effect, which would increase the infusion rate," Liu Banxia stated.

"I discovered this by testing a whole box of IV sets. We can demonstrate it right now. Although the probability isn’t very high, it genuinely exists."

The personnel in the Medical Affairs Department were skeptical; they had never heard of such a thing.

However, after Liu Banxia hung an IV bag and gently shook the tube, the drip rate visibly quickened.

"The patient was playing with his phone in bed, so his hand movements were frequent," Liu Banxia explained.

"Moreover, we overlooked something earlier. If the initial rate had been that fast, how could the patient have endured it for over twenty minutes? He likely would have shown a reaction within about ten minutes."

"That’s the situation. I don’t understand how to determine responsibility in these matters. But I must report this: these IV sets have latent defects and need to be replaced with those from the other manufacturer our hospital procures from."

Chen from the Medical Affairs Department, who had just spoken with the patient, went over to the IV set, picked it up, and shook it again. Sure enough, the dripping speed increased once more.

"Dr. Liu, did you test every single tube in the whole box individually?" Chen asked curiously.

"I opened them all, felt the resistance of the flow regulators on the IV sets, picked out the ten or so with the least resistance to test, and these three all showed accelerated flow to varying degrees after being shaken," Liu Banxia said.

"Although such an incident is very rare, it did happen. I still need to go back and deal with the unused IV sets and issue a hospital-wide notification. Please, continue your work."

This was no longer a minor issue but a major problem that affected the entire hospital. Every department might be using this brand of IV sets. Finding three sets with such a defect in a single box meant the probability was already very high.

This time, it was discovered promptly, and fortunately, the patient was in good physical condition. Otherwise, it could have been life-threatening.

Back at the Emergency Center, everyone looked relieved once Zhou Li explained what had happened.

They had already increased the frequency of their rounds for patients on IVs. This issue had to be taken very seriously, as it wasn’t advisable to directly swap out IV sets for patients currently receiving infusions.

"Oh, Director, you’re here too." Seeing Zhou Shuwen in the office, Liu Banxia quickly went in.

"You handled the situation very well. I’ve already contacted the Chief Director, and a hospital-wide meeting will be convened immediately to discuss this. Is the patient stable?" Zhou Shuwen nodded and asked.

"I haven’t contacted the patient since the incident; I was worried it might agitate him," Liu Banxia said.

"That’s fine. Let the Medical Affairs Department explain it to the patient later. You handled things very well today. I was quite shocked when I received the news," Zhou Shuwen said.

"Actually, I have great faith in the professionalism of our Emergency Center staff. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have insisted on investigating the IV set," Liu Banxia said with a smile.

It sounded a bit like he was being wise after the event, but his explanation was what counted now.

Today’s incident was truly dangerous. For something like this to happen at such a critical juncture, it was definitely newsworthy.