The Alta Bates Summit Medical Center patient who died during a nurses' strike was mistakenly given a nutritional supplement intravenously, The Oakland Tribune reported Tuesday.
Judith Ming, 66, who died Saturday, had been receiving treatment for ovarian cancer, said a replacement nurse hired by Alabama-based Advanced Clinical Employment Staffing. The hospital had hired 500 replacement nurses to work during a strike by the California Nurses' Association.
"Everything was complete chaos," she said on condition of anonymity, saying that only a brief orientation had been provided. "We were thrown in."
An expert told the newspaper that Ming was supposed to receive a supplement called Glucerna, which is administered through a feeding tube rather than through the veins. The replacement nurse said that all nurses were required to demonstrate that they could perform that skill.
Union leaders and hospital officials have pointed fingers at each other in the wake of Ming's death. More than 20,000 nurses from the California Nurses Association staged the strike to protest cuts in patient services and employee benefits.
An autopsy on Ming is scheduled for Tuesday. Oakland police, the Alameda County coroner's office and the state Department of Public Health are all investigating but declined to release further details. The Louisiana nurse who made the error was questioned and released.
Hospital spokeswoman Carolyn Kemp said the replacement nurses had had proper training. "This is a very deep, very intensive investigation that's going on, on many levels," Kemp said.
