The medical council announces the causes of the incident causing the deaths of two pregnant women in Đà Nẵng City. — Photo zing.vn

ĐÀ NẴNG — Đà Nẵng's health department on Tuesday announced the results of its investigation into the deaths of two pregnant women at the city’s Women’s Hospital.

Last month, two pregnant women died, and one was left in a critical condition after receiving injections of anaesthetic for C-sections.

After the incident, the department’s medical council studied the hospital’s reports and patients’ medical records as well as other related information.

The council concluded that for the last 10 years, the hospital had carried out 11,000 C-sections under anaesthesia without complications.

Medical staff who participated in the three caesarean sections in November all have professional medical licences.

The three women were given treatment approved by the Ministry of Health.

The hospital had not received any warnings over potential complications or side effects related to the anaesthetic used in the procedure from the health ministry’s Drug Administration or other authority.

The test results from the Central Institute for Drug Quality Control showed the anaesthetic named Bupivacaine met safety standards.

According to the council, this was a serious medical incident relating to Bupivacaine.

Regarding the hospital itself, the council concluded that the process of receiving, monitoring and caring for the patients was done strictly according to regulations.

The treatments given were also considered to be appropriate.

However, in the case of patient Lê Huỳnh Phương Triều, medical records did not show the specific medical orders given during the emergency procedure.

The hospital did not set up a medical professional council to analyse the causes of the incident as well as immediately report adverse drug reactions (ADR) on the system when the incident occurred.

In the case of Võ Thị Nhất Sinh, the hospital had failed to diagnose her worsening condition. The patient was kept in the hospital after the operation for too long before being transferred to an upper-level hospital.

For Nguyễn Thị Huyền, who was left in a critical condition, the hospital handled the incident properly and transferred the patient promptly to Đà Nẵng Hospital where she was given treatment for anaesthetic detoxification.

The health department asked the Đà Nẵng Women’s Hospital to draw lesson from the incident, focus on prognosis and immediately report future cases as per the Ministry of Health’s regulations, and on drug reactions to the National Centre for Drug Information and Harmful Reactions Monitoring. — VNS