UK Healthcare Reaches New Lows
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| Thu, 02-05-2004 - 10:10pm |
Surgeons Close Wounds with Paperclips
LONDON (Reuters) - British surgeons are endangering patients by using paper clips to close wounds and tongue depressors as splints for babies, a government agency said Tuesday.
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency said it had uncovered an increasing trend for doctors to use medical devices in ways they were not meant to be used, and also "adapt nonmedical products for clinical purposes."
Such misuse can put patients' health at serious risk, it said.
"For example, use of tongue depressors in a neonatal intensive care unit as limb splints led to two deaths and one amputation because of fungal infection," the agency said.
Surgeons were closing wounds with paper clips and urinary catheters. Others were using wooden clothes pegs to clip devices that measure the pulse on to patients' earlobes, or using fake fingernails to fix cuts on the nail bed.
"The use of a device in these circumstances exposes users and patient to unknown and therefore unacceptable risks and may have legal and ethical implications," it said.

>"British surgeons are endangering patients........"<
This makes it sound as though this is a general practice
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Renee