The nurses union, Murray said, "is trying to find a smoking gun where none exists."
"We're not knowingly allowing any malfunctioning pumps to be used in any patient care areas," he said. "We dispute their suggestion that we've done nothing in response to these incidents. We are taking any piece of equipment out of service when we become aware that it is malfunctioning."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Saturday, July 11, 2009 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 National Desk 1 inches; 36 words Type of Material: Correction
Pain pumps: An article in Friday's Section A about overdoses delivered by pain pumps at UC Irvine Medical Center said federal regulators began investigating the facility's anesthesiology department in January. The investigation was conducted in 2008.
But the union alleges in its complaint that the hospital has continued using the faulty pumps. Nurses who routinely use them say they have not been upgraded or replaced and continue to put patients at risk, according to the complaint.
"Our assumption was that the pumps were replaced, but obviously there were further problems. I am personally horrified that these pumps were not immediately fixed," said Beth Kean, director of the University of California Division of the California Nurses Assn. "Regardless of what a nurse puts in, the pumps should never empty their entire content into the patient."
The complaint also alleges that hospital administrators failed to report the overdoses to state regulators.
Murray, however, said the hospital was not required to report the incidents because the law mandates that only incidents that result in death or serious harm be disclosed.
"None of them fit that requirement," he said. "But we did take steps to get to the bottom of it."
Kean disputed that, calling overdoses severe compromises of patient safety.
"Any time that there is an overdose of a narcotic, that is a serious incident," she said. "When you overdose on narcotics, basically you stop breathing."
The complaint is the latest to raise questions about patient safety at UCI Medical Center. In May, the state Department of Public Health fined the facility $50,000 for two violations that, in one case, led to a patient's death. In January, federal regulators began investigating problems in the anesthesiology department. And in 2005, the hospital shut down its liver transplant program after more than 30 people had died awaiting livers.
State regulators said they would investigate the union's allegations about the pumps.
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tony.barboza@latimes.com
