Taipei City officials released a report yesterday on the cause of a case of suspected food poisoning last month at a care center run by the Genesis Social Welfare Found-ation (
The officials said there was no evidence showing nutritional supplements were contaminated as had been claimed by some, adding that the cause "may have been" improper feeding by caregivers.
But staffers at the foundation said they were not convinced by the report, which they said was not conclusive as it predicated much of its finding with the word "probably."
Yeh Chin-chuan (
Based on related medical examinations on samples of the patients' vomit, feeding tubes, and a nutritional supplement given to the patients called Impact with Fiber (
"There is no evidence showing that this is a case of food poisoning," Yeh said.
The incident took place on Feb. 15 when 12 brain-dead and comatose patients were found with symptoms of diarrhea, vomiting and fever after being tube-fed with the diet supplement donated by Novartis Taiwan Co Ltd.
Although the patients were later sent to several municipal hospitals, two of them -- Huang Li-hua (
Judging from the patients' symptoms and related epidemiological studies, Yeh said the tragedy was probably due to the sudden change in the diet of the patients.
He said as brain-dead and comatose patients are constantly in a low metabolic state, to suddenly feed them a different food -- which is highly-nutritious and is more readily absorbed by the body -- without diluting it may have lead to their subsequent diarrhea.
Caretakers' handling of the primary symptom of diarrhea by either failing to supply patients with additional water or giving them an antidiarreal medication such as Imodium probably worsened the situation, he added.
But staffers at the foundation said the report was not convincing. "The results are not compelling when `probably' is the best they can do to find the cause of the death of a human life," said Kuo Hui-ming (郭慧明), vice secretary-general of the foundation.
Kuo also said nurses at the center did supply water to patients with diarrhea, and their offering of Imodium to these patients was a move that followed doctors' instructions. Kuo said the foundation is willing to accept criticism if officials can present positive evidence to show that the foundation was responsible.
The foundation set up a care center for low-income brain-dead and comatose patients in 1986. So far, about 400 patients have received services at the foundation's nine care centers in Taiwan.
About 100 patients are currently under the shelter of the foundation's centers, Kuo said.
John Ma, the head of Medical Nutrition at the Novartis Taiwan Co Ltd, said in a press release that the nutritional diet is with an "osmolality status [rate of absorption] considered suitable for tube-fed patients."
But Yeh said the instructions included with the product is not as clear as it should be, adding that the bureau has urged the Department of Health to consider requiring that the instructions be rewritten.
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