Few hospitals report full complement of antidotes
If pharmacy directors across the Rocky Mountain states are telling the truth, there’s a serious problem out there with regard to stocking antidotes for common poisonings.
According to a mail survey of 108 hospitals in Montana, Nevada, and Colorado, an astounding 98% reported they did not have enough digoxin immune Fab fragments in stock to treat a 70 kg adult. About 92% reported too little pyridoxine on the shelves used to treat isoniazid overdoses and 72% lacked enough ethanol.
Victims of insecticide poisoning are also out of luck at a number of hospitals, with stocks of pralidoxime insufficient at 62% of institutions. Iron poisoning remains a top killer of children, but 38% of the hospitals reported too little deferoxamine in stock. And in an area of the country infested with rattlesnakes, nearly 40% of responding hospitals said they didn’t have enough crotalid antivenin to treat an adult.
The authors of the survey report that the hospitals most likely to be deficient in the antidotes were small, non-teaching institutions.
Antidotes can be notoriously expensive especially those for snake bites and digoxin toxicity. But the authors suggest the total price to keep a sufficient stock of antidotes about $10,000 is far less than the cost of patient complications from a poisoning.
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