A third dialysis patient at the Pemex Regional Hospital in Villahermosa, Tabasco, has died from contaminated medication.

Feliciano Sánchez Osorio, 65, died on Friday after being treated with a contaminated dose of the life-saving blood-thinning drug sodium heparin.

Two others have died and as many as 25 have required hospitalization since the patients were administered the contaminated drug last weekend.

Sánchez’s body was taken to the state Attorney General’s Office for an autopsy. The victim’s family will decide whether or not to sue the hospital once they see the results.

His wife Elodia Hernández Félix said that he had told hospital staff that the medicine was a strange yellow color and that he had seen them take it out of dusty, old boxes.

“He, with his own money, bought the heparin, but they didn’t use it here. They gave him something else, and he himself told the nurse that they were going to kill him. He began to feel bad that very same day [February 27],” she said.

Hernández called for justice and demanded that President López Obrador intervene to see that other dialysis patients don’t die in the same way.

Several patients at the hospital’s dialysis clinic have complained about the quality of the medicine they receive.

Gutemberg López Hidalgo said that he hadn’t been administered the correct medication in weeks and that he was forced to buy it out of pocket, despite not being able to work.

María Araceli García, whose husband is in intensive therapy, complained that the dialysis department is always closed and that it lacks basic medications and supplies.

Others said that although the state oil company had reported it would move six critical patients to Mexico City for specialized care, none has left Tabasco and they are still being treated at the hospital in Villahermosa.

This was not the week’s only news of harmful practices in Pemex medical facilities. Results from a study published last December by doctors at Mexico City’s Central Norte Pemex Hospital revealed that over 13% of patients at the facility have been victims of “medication errors.”

Source: El Financiero (sp)