State Checking Drug Overdose at Edgemoor

State health officials said Thursday they were investigating the case of a patient at Edgemoor Geriatric Hospital who was mistakenly given a dose of medication that required her to receive emergency treatment.

The 36-year-old woman was given the tranquilizer Valium on Wednesday 3 1/2 hours after she had received a regularly scheduled dose of the same drug, said Ernest Trujillo, head of the state Department of Health Services licensing division in San Diego.

Paramedics took the woman to the Grossmont Hospital emergency room. She returned to Edgemoor later the same day.

The incident comes in the midst of a site inspection at the Santee hospital by state health authorities. The 323-bed hospital, which cares for the elderly, disabled and mentally disturbed, could lose Medicare and Medi-Cal aid because of repeated problems in management, maintenance and patient care.

Trujillo said inspectors would complete their visit today and report their findings next week to the federal Department of Health and Human Services. The department’s certification and licensing office will decide by June 30 whether to cut off money for Edgemoor.

In a statement issued to the news media, county officials blamed the overdose on the “unplanned and abrupt departure” of a nurse from a countywide nursing pool, because the nurse said she felt “overwhelmed” by her responsibilities at Edgemoor. She was replaced by another nurse who was told that the patient’s medication had not been given, the statement said.

County officials said changes proposed for Edgemoor, including the elimination of pool nurses, are designed “to curtail this type of incident.”

Officials said the patient, whose name was not released, was given Valium to control the effects of Huntington’s Chorea.