by Matt Barr

Enough flopsweat to power a Hyundai

"I don't get business cards until I win a case." -- Ted Buckland. Maybe next year, Ted!

3,800 operations were performed at Durham Regional Hospital and Duke Health Raleigh Hospital in November and December, between the time when elevator workers filled soap bottles with hydraulic fluid and surgeons started using it instead of soap and when they figured out elevator workers had filled soap bottles with hydraulic fluid and surgeons had been using it instead of soap.

Let's go to the AP:

In January, Duke officials said the instruments had been washed in the hydraulic fluid, then run through a steam bath for sterilization. The hospital said it monitored infection rates and found no increase for the time the hydraulic fluid was used.

Other opinions on the potential harm from the fluid varied. A report by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the hospitals' errors put patients in "immediate jeopardy."

State investigators - while citing the hospitals and the elevator company for mistakes that created the confusion, including poor communication and improper labeling of chemicals - did not consider the problem serious, said spokeswoman Heather Crews of the state Labor Department.

Sounds like state investigators didn't have any operations in November and December!

Both hospitals have created plans to prevent such problems in the future, a Duke spokeswoman said Monday.

"Created plans"? What kinds of creative ways not to have this happen again are there? The solution seems fairly pedestrian to me.

"It should be pretty easy to see when you start to wash something that detergent is different from hydraulic fluid," said Dr. Michael Grodin, director of medical ethics at the Boston University School of Medicine. He said the two fluids normally have different colors and textures.

"The more interesting question was what was going on and why did it take so long to figure it out," Grodin said. "What was in place that people did not follow and what is being done to make sure it never happens again?"

Some hydraulic fluids have an oily smell while others have no smell, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. They can also be flammable.

I'm squarely on the side of the patients, here, but what does it being flammable have to do with anything?

There is little data on how the fluids affect humans. In studies, rabbits that inhaled the fluid had trouble breathing and other animals experienced nervous system tremors as well as diarrhea and breathing problems.

And wouldn't just about any mammal have trouble breathing if it inhaled a fluid?

Part of the bedrock on which I build my life is that doctors are largely incompetent (except the ones my wife works with!), but this surprises even me.

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