Investigators believe that a newborn’s fall in May at Kwong Wah Hospital, which led to a brain haemorrhage, was most likely due to a nurse accidentally unlocking the incubator doors.
At 14 days old, the baby had been admitted into the Yau Ma Tei hospital’s Special Care Baby Unit for a respiratory issue.
Ten days into her stay in the unit, nurses found her crying on the floor after she had been placed inside her incubator 15 minutes earlier.
According to a report released by the hospital on Tuesday, a nurse may have accidentally unlocked the incubator door as she put a cover over it in order to shield the baby from light.
In addition, the nurse had tilted the baby’s sleeping mat in order to help her breathe, which meant that her head was at the same level as the doors – something hospital investigators believe may have contributed to her fall.
The doors to the cubicle are designed to be silent when unlocking and locking them – in order to avoid disturbing the baby – and therefore their unintentional unlocking would have gone unnoticed.
After the incident, a Hospital Authority statement said the nurse had confirmed that the baby had been secured properly, and that the 24-day-old newborn had “kicked open” the doors herself.
The new report recommends that nurses should carefully double check that incubator doors are shut properly, that babies’ sleeping mats should not be tilted so that the baby’s head is at the same level as the incubator door, and that incubator covers should not be positioned so that they don’t block the apparatus’ windows.
The Hospital Authority says it issued safety alerts to all clinical departments that use the same model of incubator.
Kwong Wah Hospital also again expressed its “heartfelt apology” to the baby and her family.
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Hospital claims newborn baby ‘kicked open incubator’ and fell, causing brain haemmorhage
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