New Mom Describes Series of Med Blunders

WEST PALM BEACH (CN) - A woman says nurses nearly killed her unborn baby when they mistakenly inserted an abortion-inducing suppository instead of the drug she was supposed to get, to prevent a premature birth. As a result, she says, her baby was born prematurely, with severe birth defects.

The negligence complaint in Palm Beach County Circuit Court describes a series of alleged medical blunders.

Dr. Helena de Carvalho wrote instructions for nurses who were caring for Tesome Sampson, who was 22 weeks pregnant and was staying at St. Mary's Medical Center on her doctor's orders to rest, the complaint states. Sampson has a short cervix and needed a Progesterone regimen to reduce the chance of a premature birth.

Nurses gave the barely legible Progesterone prescription to the St. Mary's Medical Center pharmacy, where pharmacist Richard Zamborowski misread the note and instead provided Prostin, which induces an abortion by forcing the uterine muscles to expel the fetus, according to the complaint.

Sampson says the attending nurse, Anne Gachette, inserted the Prostin vaginal suppository, and that after hours of pain, Sampson gave birth to a barely living and severely brain-damaged baby.

The nurses were oblivious, and thinking that Sampson needed to move her bowels, provided a bedpan into which the baby was delivered, according to the complaint.

Sampson claims the nurses had made the same error just hours earlier, mistakenly administering a Prostin suppository to another pregnant woman, whose unborn twins died as a result.

Sampson and her family say the infant is still alive, but "because of (the baby's) lack of development, she must be fed through a tube."

Medical bills have already amounted to more than $3.5 million, they say. The family is represented by David Kelley with Searcy Denney.

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