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UCI Medical Center nurses file complaint against hospital
Nurses at UC Irvine Medical Center claim the hospital's using shoddy equipment. KPCC's Susan Valot says the nurses have filed a complaint with state regulators.
The nurses accuse UCI Medical Center of using faulty pain control pumps at the facility in Orange. The pain control pumps allow patients to control their pain medicine by pressing a button. The nurses told the California Department of Public Health that the faulty equipment led to at least five patients' accidental overdoses on narcotics.
All of them survived and are fine now. The hospital blames the nurses in at least three of those cases, and said they made dosing mistakes. A hospital spokesman denies that the facility is still using the faulty pumps and says the medical center is installing better equipment.