Lawsuit alleges Ontario man died after given 10 times prescribed dose in hospital

Angela Salvatore (right) the daughter of Benito Salvatore who died in hospital this summer is embraced by her brother BJ as they visit their father’s gravesite with their mother, Barbara, in Niagara Falls, Ont., Friday, October 18, 2024.

Angela Salvatore had been away from her father's hospital bedside for just over an hour when she says she got a frantic call from a nurse, pleading with her to calm him down.

After she rushed back to his room, she alleges ashen-faced staff delivered an alarming message: her father had mistakenly been given 10 times the prescribed dose of an antipsychotic drug.

As the night went on, Salvatore says she and her mother watched helplessly as her father, Benito Salvatore, went through waves of confusion, agitation and eventually delirium. Then, less than 12 hours after the hospital's call, his heart stopped, she says. He couldn't be revived.

"We were numb. We were completely numb," Angela Salvatore said in an interview last week. "The loss is unquantifiable and the grief is profound."

Now, she says she wants accountability for what happened to her father, an Italian immigrant who came to Canada as a young man in the 1960s.

In a lawsuit filed earlier this month, the family alleges Benito Salvatore suffered severe pain and shock, and ultimately died prematurely on July 31 due to negligence that led to a series of medical errors and failures.

It alleges, among other things, that nurses failed to properly confirm the prescribed dosage and doctors downplayed the seriousness of the alleged error, failing to recognize that "it was a potentially fatal, life-threatening" one.

The lawsuit names as defendants Niagara Health, which operates the St. Catharines-Ont. hospital where Benito Salvatore was treated, as well as four doctors and two nurses involved in his care.

None of the allegations have been tested in court and a statement of defence has not yet been filed. Niagara Health said it could not comment on a case currently before the courts.

The statement of claim says Benito Salvatore went to the emergency room on July 23 after experiencing worsening shortness of breath, among other things. He was admitted to the hospital and underwent a number of tests and treatments over the next week, including for a type of heart failure and sleep apnea, it says.

On July 30, a doctor prescribed him quetiapine, an antipsychotic medication known under the brand name Seroquel, the document says. The prescription was for 12.5 milligrams, to be taken orally once a day in the evening, it says.

The lawsuit alleges one or more of the nurses failed to properly read or document the prescription. It further alleges a nurse failed to double-check the dosage and was grossly negligent in dispensing the medication.

That nurse then realized she had made "a grave dispensing error" and given Salvatore 125 milligrams of the drug, the statement of claim alleges.

The doctors, it alleges, "all failed to properly treat, recognize, investigate and/or escalate Benito's critical medical situation in a timely and emergent manner."

Salvatore, meanwhile, became agitated, confused and hypoxic, a condition where the body's tissues have low levels of oxygen, the document says. He was placed in restraints, it says.

Salvatore was found without vital signs on July 31, and resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful, the statement of claim says.

Angela Salvatore said she and her mother were outside of the hospital room as medical staff tried to revive her father. "I didn’t get the opportunity to say goodbye to him," she said.

The two of them "relive the trauma" of those hours on a daily basis, and the experience has destroyed their confidence in the health-care system, she said.

"This was a supreme botch job … for my beautiful father," she said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 26, 2024.