Latest news with #morphine
The Independent
3 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
11-year-old in remission from leukemia went to the hospital in pain. The prescribed morphine then killed her
The family of an 11-year-old girl who died after surviving cancer was awarded $20.5 million after a jury determined prescribed morphine ultimately killed her. Ava Wilson's family filed a lawsuit against Advocate Health and Hospitals Corporation following her death in 2020. On October 31 of that year, Ava died in her sleep 'due to acute combined drug toxicity of morphine, hydroxyzine and gabapentin, the family's attorneys at Salvi, Schostok and Pritchard P.C. said this week. The lawsuit claimed she had lethal levels of morphine in her system. Ava had been discharged from a clinic in Illinois 36 hours before her death. While there, the child was 'crying in pain' and 'had difficulty walking and foot drop,' attorneys said. Medical staff ran tests that later showed Ava had low platelet counts, low blood cell counts, high liver enzymes and low blood pressure, the release stated. Her attorneys claimed her blood pressure had not been rechecked before she was discharged. 'Instead of admitting Ava to the hospital to get her blood pressure, heart rate and pain levels within acceptable and normal limits, Advocate employees sent Ava home with excessive pain medications,' Matthew L Williams, the lead trial attorney, said in a release. 'Ava's body was yelling out to these clinicians, 'help me!', and they just ignored it.' A nurse practitioner at the clinic prescribed Ava 100 mg of gabapentin to be taken three times a day and 15 mg of morphine to be taken every four hours as needed, according to the civil complaint obtained by The News & Observer. The child's oncologist did not examine her but endorsed the nurse practitioner's recommendation. 'Prior to this appointment, all of Ava's prior morphine prescriptions to be taken at home were for just 5 mg. (The nurse practitioner) also increased Ava's gabapentin prescription and sent her home. When taken together, the medications can make each other stronger,' according to a news release from the law firm. In a written statement, Advocate Health And Hospitals Corporation told the newspaper, 'Our hearts go out to this family. We are committed to providing appropriate care to every patient. Due to patient privacy, we are unable to comment further.' Ava had been in remission from B-lymphoblastic leukemia. A news release from the attorneys said her 'outlook was positive' and 'she had no detectable leukemia in her blood.'
Times
3 days ago
- Health
- Times
Dr Anne Merriman obituary: doctor known as ‘mother of palliative care in Africa'
Dr Anne Merriman revolutionised palliative and end-of-life care in Africa after developing a cheap form of oral morphine with a Singapore hospital pharmacist. Originally mixed in a kitchen sink, it included a pound of morphine, a preservative and colouring: lighter doses were green; stronger ones, pink and blue. A bottle cost about $2, a fraction of the cost of western formulations. Universally known as 'Dr Anne', she said: 'It's easier than baking a cake.' She developed the pain-controlling recipe after seeing terminally ill patients discharged from hospital because 'nothing more could be done for them'. Many died at home in severe and prolonged pain. 'A wild, undisciplined schoolgirl' who became a nun and a doctor, Merriman founded the pioneering Hospice Africa Uganda (HAU) in 1993 at the age of 57. Palliative care was largely unknown in Africa when she started her work in Uganda. HAU has treated more than 35,000 patients and trained more than 10,000 healthcare professionals from 37 African countries in the so-called Merriman model. Tough, stubborn and charismatic, she conceded that her 'brash and insensitive ways' had offended people, adding: 'I find it amazing that God has used this blemish as one of my greatest strengths.' It enabled her, she said, to be 'a forceful and obsessive' advocate for hospice care and to stand up to older male doctors who claimed that morphine prescribing would promote drug abuse. In her book Audacity to Love, published in 2010, she wrote: 'In Africa, in particular, some men are more dominant than in the rest of the world and don't take well to a female doctor bringing in a new speciality. 'Even today in Uganda, considered to have the best palliative care in Africa, there are consultants who refuse to allow patients' pain to be treated with oral morphine, even though sometimes these patients are their own colleagues.' Calling herself a 'true Scouser', she was born in Liverpool in 1935, the third of four children of Thomas ('Toddy'), a primary school headmaster, and Josephine Merriman (née Dunne). A bright, questioning child, she wanted to become a Catholic priest like her older brother Joseph and later wrote: 'I could not understand such discrimination and I still feel the same way.' The catalyst for her passion for palliative care emerged in childhood when her 11-year-old brother Bernard died from a brain tumour. She later spoke passionately about the absence of palliative care for him. There were other signposts signalling a spectacular future in caring. At the age of four, after seeing pictures of sick African children in a magazine, she declared: 'I'm going to Africa to look after the poorly children.' Nine years later she saw a film showing the Irish head of the Medical Missionaries of Mary (MMM) riding around the Nigerian village of Anua on a bicycle. She told her mother and a nun at school that she wanted to join the order and did so at the age of 18 after leaving Broughton Hall Catholic High School in West Derby, Liverpool. Recognising a rich potential in the wayward, recalcitrant novice with disappointing exam results, MMM enrolled her in a three-year internship at the International Missionary Training Hospital in Drogheda, Ireland. She spent a further year in a medical laboratory before going to medical school at University College Dublin. As a young doctor Merriman worked in MMM hospitals in Nigeria and in Drogheda, Edinburgh and Dublin. After 20 years as a religious sister and missionary, she returned to secular life in Liverpool to look after her sick mother and to specialise for eight years in geriatric medicine. Increasingly concerned by patients dying 'without pain and symptom control', she followed the teaching of Dame Cicely Saunders (obituary, July 15, 2005), the founder of the modern hospice movement. Saunders created a new kind of hospice, St Christopher's in Sydenham, southeast London, combining compassionate care with medical care. But Merriman's vision of a hospice was not restricted to a physical building. Hospice care, she said, could be given in the most appropriate place, including the patient's home. It included emotional, social and spiritual support as well as pain control. This made pragmatic sense in Uganda where 90 per cent of the population are reported to live in rural areas where doctors are scarce. Uganda became the first African country to permit nurses and trained clinical officers (physician assistants) to prescribe morphine; and the first African country to make palliative care part of its health service. After her mother's death in 1981, Merriman worked in Calcutta with Mother Teresa whose order included a hospice; in Penang in Malaysia as an associate professor; and in Singapore as a senior teaching fellow. In 1990 she accepted an invitation to become the first medical director of the Nairobi Hospice, only to leave quickly because of 'bureaucratic interference'. A case history she published in Contact, a World Council of Churches journal, secured her future in Africa. Describing a terminally ill patient who had a pain-free, peaceful death, it attracted invitations from several African countries who wanted to develop palliative care services. She chose Uganda as it was emerging from 25 years of war and reeling under the HIV crisis. Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu (obituary, December 27, 2021) said in 2018: 'Anne has created a uniquely African template of love, dignity, care and compassion for people.' Nominated for the Nobel peace prize in 2014 and appointed MBE, Merriman protested that 'caring for the dying is the lowest priority in healthcare because doctors are trying to cure, not to care'. She lived in a large house overlooking Lake Victoria with her 'family', including three housekeepers and 15 dogs, once led by Adam and Eve. When Eve died she declared that Adam was grieving and found him a new partner. A warm, welcoming hostess, she was renowned locally for her Tuesday night dinners where 12 or more guests would include local dignitaries, visiting specialists and overnighting donors and volunteers. But she could also, as she put it, create a frosty atmosphere in a tropical climate. In one notable case, she highlighted the tragedy of Robert, a terminally ill 12-year-old boy with a huge cancer, a Burkitt's lymphoma, on his face. Robert slept under a counter in his aunt's shop and Merriman regularly took him to the hospice for a change of scene. He grimaced in pain as they drove across the many potholes along the way. Merriman said: 'After his [Robert's] death, the President of the USA, Bill Clinton, visited Uganda … They levelled the road so he wouldn't get a bump on the bum. The Roberts of this world do not count. But Presidents do. How sick is that?' Anne Merriman, doctor, was born on May 13, 1935. She died from respiratory failure on May 18, 2025, aged 90
Daily Mail
3 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Indiana girl, 11, beat cancer... but nurse made a terrible mistake that ended up KILLING her
An 11-year-old girl who just beat cancer was about to get another chance at life, but a nurse took that from her after prescribing her a lethal dose of morphine. Ava Wilson, of Crown Point, Indiana, was in remission from b-lymphoblastic leukemia in October 2020 when she went for a follow-up appointment at Advocate Children's Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois - about 45 minutes outside of Chicago. Her 'outlook was positive' and 'she had no detectable leukemia in her blood' at the time, according to Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard P.C., the legal team representing her family. But during her visit on October 29 of that year at the children's hospital, Wilson was 'crying in pain' and 'had difficulty walking and foot drop,' the attorneys added. Tests soon revealed she has low platelet counts, low blood cell counts, high liver enzymes and low blood pressure. Wilson was then discharged from the hospital with instructions from a nurse practitioner to take 15 milligrams of morphine every four hours - triple the amount of her past prescriptions. A nurse also increased her gabapentin prescription, which is a nerve pain medication used to treat seizures, CBS News reported. About 36 hours later, on October 31, Wilson died in her sleep at home from acute drug toxicity from several substances, 'including lethal levels of morphine', hydroxyzine and gabapentin. Her devastated parents went on to file a wrongful death lawsuit against the hospital, noting Wilson's oncologist did not examine their daughter, but instead turned to the nurse's 'at-home pain management plan' instead, the filing, reviewed by the Sun Herald, read. 'Instead of admitting Ava to the hospital to get her blood pressure, heart rate and pain levels within acceptable and normal limits, Advocate employees sent Ava home with an excessive [amount of] pain medications,' Matthew L. Williams, the family's lead attorney, said. 'Ava's body was yelling out to these clinicians, "help me!", and they just ignored it.' On Thursday, the jury awarded her family $20.5million in damages following the civil trial. 'While nothing will ease the depth of Ava's loved ones' pain, the family appreciates that the jury recognized that Ava's death was preventable and that she should still be with them today,' attorney Aaron Boeder said. In response to the recent settlement, Advocate Children's Hospital told Daily Mail: 'Our hearts go out to this family. We are committed to providing appropriate care to every patient. 'Due to patient privacy, we are unable to comment further.' Her mother, Pamela Wilson, has remembered her late daughter as the 'light of my life.' 'She was an amazing little girl, just so beautiful, full of life, very kind and generous,' Wilson told CBS News. 'When you lose a child, your life stops.... So, there's relief, but there's also a sense of - my life really hasn't changed. 'Ava's still not here. She's not gonna be around, you know, her siblings aren't gonna have her, I'm not going to have her,' Pamela added. Ava was the oldest of her three siblings, according to her obituary. She loved playing soccer, was involved in the Science Olympiad and was also an Honor Student. Wilson also enjoyed taking cooking and art classes at the local YMCA, it added. A funeral service was held for her on November 7, 2020. She loved playing soccer, was involved in the Science Olympiad and was also an Honor Student. Wilson also enjoyed taking cooking and art classes at the local YMCA, it added. A funeral service was held for her on November 7, 2020.
CBS News
11-06-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Cook County jury awards $20.5 million to family of girl who died from toxic levels of morphine
A Cook County jury awarded more than $20 million in damages to the family of an 11-year-old girl who died from toxic levels of morphine. In October 2020, Ava Wilson was recovering from leukemia when she went for a follow-up appointment at Advocate Children's Hospital. During her appointment, she was crying from pain, and had difficulty walking, according to her family's attorneys. Lab tests revealed she had low platelet counts, low blood cell counts, high liver enzymes, and low blood pressure. She was discharged from Advocate Children's Hospital with instructions to take 15 milligrams of morphine every four hours, triple the amount of her previous prescriptions. A nurse practitioner also increased her gabapentin prescription. Approximately 36 hours after getting home, she died in her sleep from acute drug toxicity of several substances, including lethal levels of morphine in her system at the time of her death. Her family's attorneys said the hospital should have admitted Ava to the hospital to get her blood pressure under control and treat the cause of her pain, but simply sent her home with excessive pain medications. "Ava's body was yelling out to these clinicians, 'help me!', and they just ignored it," attorney Matthew Williams said. After a civil trial, a jury awarded her family $20.5 million in damages. "While nothing will ease the depth of Ava's loved ones' pain, the family appreciates that the jury recognized that Ava's death was preventable and that she should still be with them today," attorney Aaron Boeder said.
CTV News
29-05-2025
- General
- CTV News
Hundreds of pills seized, northern Ont. woman charged after traffic stop
A 41-year-old North Bay woman faces multiple drug-related charges after a traffic stop led to the seizure of hundreds of pills. The North Bay Police Service said, in a news release, an officer on patrol observed a vehicle make a brief stop at a known drug-use location on Main Street East around 1 p.m. on May 18. Authorities reported the vehicle was later seen making erratic movements before being pulled over. During the traffic stop, officers discovered open alcohol in the vehicle. A subsequent search allegedly uncovered drugs, leading to the woman's arrest. The vehicle search, along with a search of the suspect's person at headquarters, resulted in the seizure of 490.5 amphetamine pills – packaged for distribution – and four morphine capsules. 'The street value of the drugs was approximately $2,450.50,' police said. The accused was charged with drug trafficking, drug possession, and breach of recognizance. She was released on an undertaking with a future court date.
