Nancy Hospital and Doctors Condemned After Death of Little Timéo due to Medication Overdose

Two female doctors guilty of negligence were sentenced to suspended prison terms and the Nancy hospital to a heavy fine on Friday for the death of Timéo, 4, which occurred following a drug overdose in 2015. Nancy Criminal Court, on the other hand, acquitted the nurse initially implicated. A year suspended sentence had been requested against the three caregivers, prosecuted for manslaughter.

In the spring of 2015, the little boy was admitted to the Nancy CHRU for leg pain, after falling from a motorcycle on which his father was transporting him. Struggling to establish a clear diagnosis after three weeks of care in the infant unit, under the supervision of a young intern, the medical team decided to give him colchicine, an anti-inflammatory. But a prescription error (0.5 mg per day which will become 0.5 mg per kg) led to the administration, on two consecutive days, of 16 times the dosage required for such a young patient, which led to his death.

The pediatric cardiologist who prescribed the colchicine, the overworked assistant head of clinic who did not sufficiently supervise the medical intern in charge of the young patient, and the nurse who negligently administered the erroneous prescription were prosecuted.

“We were heard,” responded Timéo’s mother, Élodie, after the decision was announced. “What we would have liked is that a process with checks be put in place today in this hospital. We do not know if, since the facts, there have been improvements in the care and prescription of drugs in this pediatric service, ”she continued. “There is a big lack of security in this hospital, one wonders how they manage to be ranked among the best CHRs.”

“Our fear was that the death of our son would be suffocated, that no one would be found guilty, and this is not the case, it is already a small step,” added the father, Julien.

The cardiologist was found guilty of Timéo’s death and given a one-year suspended prison sentence. The court considered that she was an “experienced, competent doctor”, who “left the intern to fend for herself” while “she is the specialist, she who knows the medicine and knows that it there was no pediatric version of it,” reasoned the court. A “revolting decision” for his lawyer, who has already planned to appeal.

The doctor who was, at the time of the events, assistant head of clinic was given a six-month suspended prison sentence for her “failure to supervise an intern in medicine”. “There is gross negligence in the supervision,” considered the court.

With regard to the released nurse, the court considered that she “could not have known that this medicine was dangerous”, especially since “there was no alert on the pharmacy software” and that she “was not the author of the second injection”. “It is the strict application of the law, no fault could be reproached to him”, reacted his lawyer at the end of the hearing.