No autopsy will be performed on a dialysis patient who died after contaminated water was pumped into his body during routine treatment at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, the medical examiner’s office said Wednesday.
And one of the three other patients mistakenly exposed to contaminated water has been re-admitted to hospital for precautionary reasons, Alberta Health Services said.
The decision not to conduct an autopsy was made by family members of the man who died Sunday night, two days after accidentally receiving the wrong chemicals while undergoing dialysis.
The ME’s office will still conduct an investigation, but it will be based on the hospital’s own investigation, said Ogho Ikhalo of the medical examiner’s office, .
Depending on the investigation results, the case may be referred to the fatality review board, Ikhalo said.
The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees and the Health Sciences Association of Alberta say the worker who was doing technical maintenance on the dialysis machine would not be a member of either union and likely worked for the manufacturer.
AHS said it’s unlikely they will reveal the name of the contracted company.
No information has been released about the dead man’s age or where he was from.
Vickie Kaminski, AHS president and CEO, has said the incident happened Friday when a routine line flush was being done. She said the wrong valve was opened and instead of peracetic acid and hydrogen peroxide being flushed out of the system it went into the line that was circulating through the dialysis equipment.
“It is human error that was at the root cause of this,” Kaminski said on Tuesday.
