I’ll start off by admitting I’m not a fan of Minimed, and doing a search on Minimed on this site will explain why.
It’s odd on how people get polarized but as I often say — we are attached to our pumps.
The Seattle Times: Search Results
The pump, about the size of a cellphone, had a safety feature designed to stop the insulin flow in emergencies like this. But the feature wasn’t on. The pump had been shipped to Lane with the option turned off, and the device’s instructional video devoted only 15 seconds to it, saying nothing about why the feature should be used.
I don’t blame Mini-med on this. I do blame her CDE and the endo that prescribed the pump, especially when you see later on in the article:
On Oct. 25, 2000, a Wednesday, Sylvia met with Emily Holing, a diabetes educator at the UW clinic. Holing hooked up Sylvia’s pump and showed her how to use it.
This same afternoon, Holing documented two episodes of hypoglycemia for Sylvia, 15 minutes apart. Each time Sylvia needed to drink orange juice.
Sylvia had pizza that evening, then drove home. She wouldn’t be heard from for three days.
Friends and family tried calling Sylvia on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, leaving 17 messages. Sylvia’s twin sister lived three hours away. On Saturday she traveled to Sylvia’s and, with another relative, went inside. They found Sylvia on her bed, unconscious, lying in vomit. Her insulin pump was attached and running.
I wasn’t there, I’m not a medical practitioner, but it sounds like that they were probably having problems because she still had her old basal insulin in her system. Thats why I don’t like basal insulins (slow acting, Lantus, NPH, what have you). You don’t have control of them once you take them.
But I blame the CDE for not making sure that she had a support system in place AND the patient for not having a support system in place. There should have been someone very close to her until they knew she knew how to operate the pump.
The only way I’d blame Minimed is if they were responsible for the pump training. And I checked — the Animas pumps apparently ship with this feature off too — mine was and it isn’t something I ever think about. I “knew” it was there, but never really thought about it. I have mine on now, but it’s set to turn off after 24 hours.
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