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Punctured IV drip bags found at nurse station in Osaka hospital

Officials at a general hospital in Osaka City filed a report with police after punctured IV drip bags were discovered on December 28 and New Year’s Day (TBS News)
Officials at a general hospital in Osaka City filed a report with police after punctured IV drip bags were discovered on December 28 and New Year’s Day (TBS News)

OSAKA (TR) – Officials at a general hospital in Osaka City filed a report with police on Wednesday after punctured IV drip bags were discovered on December 28 and New Year’s Day.

Officials at Kitano Hospital in Kita Ward said a nurse discovered fluid leaking from a damaged IV drip bag at a nurse station in the obstetrics and gynecology ward after noticing the floor was wet on December 28, though the bag was undamaged when checked some 10 minutes before, the Sankei Shimbun reports (Jan. 4).

A leaking IV drip bag with a small hole in its middle area was also discovered on Sunday morning at the same nurse station on the seventh floor. The bag was intact when checked some 20 to 30 minutes earlier.

The patients the bags were to be administered to were unharmed, hospital officials said, adding the bags were likely tampered with.

Police are investigating the case as suspected criminal damage to objects.

TBS News (Jan. 4) quoted hospital officials as saying the hospital has “strived to do its utmost to build a safety management system, but we will improve our management system and strive for safety management.”

The incident comes after two elderly male patients were found to have been killed by their IV drip bag being poisoned at Oguchi Hospital in Yokohama in September.

Oguchi Hospital officials had initially ruled that the death of the poisoned patient was death by disease.