Patient in Bosnia and Herzegovina receives overdose of 20 units of insulin due to faulty pump

The Agency for Medicines and Medical Devices issued a notice five days ago about faulty insulin infusion pumps "Medtronic MiniMed Paradigm External Infusion Pump" and "Medtronic MiniMed Paradigm Insulin Pump Paradigm Veo". However, this notice went unnoticed by the public, although it was noted that handling and using these pumps could lead to receiving an excessive dose of insulin, reports the Patria News Agency.
 

- In October last year, "Medtronic" received a complaint that a pump user had accidentally selected and initiated the delivery of a programmed maximum bolus dose twice within a short period by pressing the down arrow when the bolus dose was displayed as 0 on the screen, and then pressed the ACT button without realizing that they had selected the delivery of the programmed maximum bolus dose. The consequence was that the pump user received an overdose of 20 units of insulin over a period of 2 hours, for which they were hospitalized due to low blood glucose levels - said the Agency for Medicines.

They further stated that "Medtronic" has so far received four more reports of incidents with the range selection function, but there have been no adverse events as a consequence of these incidents.

- Unintentional selection and delivery of a bolus dose higher than the dose the user intended to select can result in hypoglycemia and hospitalization. The fact that "Medtronic" has received only five reports of accidental delivery of the maximum bolus dose in the past four years indicates that this is a very rare and unlikely occurrence - added the Agency.