Fourth death by error reported at Kaiser Hospital

A 77-year-old man was admitted to the Santa Clara hospital on Oct. 28, 2004 with respiratory difficulties and, despite a doctor's order on the morning of Nov. 1 not to feed the man by mouth, a member of the nursing staff fed the man from a lunch tray around 6 p.m. that day.

By 6:30 p.m., the patient began having trouble breathing. He was dead by 7:30 that night, according to a report by the California Department of Health Services.

Also at the Santa Clara facility, a patient died from a nurse-administered drug overdose on Christmas Eve 2004, and a 12-year-old San Jose girl died from a drug overdose on July 26 of this year, when a nurse gave her double the intended dose.

A 21-year-old San Jose man died on Aug. 29 at Kaiser Permanente's Santa Teresa Medical Center, three days after a physician injected him with the wrong medication.

As news of the deaths at its South Bay facilities has surfaced, Kaiser Permanente has issued vague, if sympathetic, statements on the incidents.

Its latest statement speaks to the Nov. 1, 2004 death by error.

"The patient was inadvertently given a food tray despite a doctor's order to hold food, pending further evaluations of the patient. The patient subsequently died,'' hospital officials said in a prepared statement today.

"Kaiser Permanente has expressed its deepest regret and sympathy to the family for their tragic loss. We accept full responsibility for the error and have added additional safeguards to prevent this error from occurring again,'' the statement read.<