Medical blunder leaves woman jabbed with Sinovac instead of contraceptive injection

The woman, who was already fully vaccinated, was accidentally given a Sinovac jab instead of a contraceptive injection. Photo: Pexels/Nataliya Vaitkevich
The woman, who was already fully vaccinated, was accidentally given a Sinovac jab instead of a contraceptive injection. Photo: Pexels/Nataliya Vaitkevich

A woman who went to a clinic in Tai Po Thursday to receive a contraceptive injection was mistakenly given a Sinovac shot instead.

The 32-year-old, who identified as Hiu Ying (transliteration), told HK01 that she realized something was off when she noticed that the needle she had just been jabbed with was longer than what was used during her previous contraceptive injections.

When she asked the doctor what he had just administered, he replied that it was Sinovac. “I’m [here to] receive the contraceptive injection, not Sinovac,” the woman told him.

The doctor admitted the mistake and offered to re-do the contraceptive injection, but the woman, who has already received two BioNTech shots, declined. She asked the doctor if he would be filing a report about the blunder to government departments, to which he said “[we] can do that.”

Read more: Man who was fully jabbed abroad gets 2 more COVID-19 shots in HK to ‘go to bars’

The woman demanded that the doctor take her blood pressure, which turned out to have increased. Feeling her heart beat faster and her head hurting, she called an ambulance and admitted herself to a hospital with a letter the doctor had written acknowledging that she was “accidentally given Sinovac today.”

The clinic could not be reached via phone call Friday morning. Coconuts has also contacted the Department of Health about whether it is aware of the incident.

“I feel the doctor is a little irresponsible. Even after it happened, he seemed confused, not knowing how to handle [the situation],” the woman said. “He didn’t even do a basic body check for me, or ask me to stay at the clinic for monitoring.”

She added that she is considering lodging a complaint to the Medical Council of Hong Kong.




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