Dennis Quaid and wife to start a foundation to promote patient safety

Hollywood star Dennis Quaid said he and his wife plan to start a foundation to promote patient safety.

He told the LA Times: "When you go into a hospital, you become like a child, like an infant in a way.

"The names of the drugs, we can't even pronounce. . . . We put complete trust, and we are so vulnerable like a child, innocent and vulnerable in a hospital situation."

The move follows the shocking blunder which saw Quaids' twins given an overdose of the blood thinner Heparin. The twins Thomas and Zoe were born on November 8 2007 at St John's Health Center in Santa Monica.

Although a surrogate carried the babies, the Quaids are the biological parents.

The twins came home three days after their birth. But within days, the parents and a nurse noticed that Thomas had an infection around his navel and Zoe soon developed an infection too.

So on November 17, their pediatrician told them to take the twins to Cedars-Sinai. The babies were placed in a room in the pediatric unit to receive intravenous antibiotics.

The Quaids spent the entire next day at the hospital. "So, our kids are actually being overdosed while we're there," Quaid told the LA Times.

According to state regulators, the medical errors began the morning of November 18 when two pharmacy technicians mistakenly delivered 100 vials of heparin to the pediatric unit.

The vials contained a concentration of 10,000 units per milliliter instead of the appropriate 10 units per milliliter of the blood thinner, which is used to prevent clots.

A short time later, the twins received their first dose of the high-concentration heparin to flush their intravenous lines. They each received a second dose about eight hours later.

The nurses involved told inspectors they could not remember whether they had read the label on the heparin vials. A third child at Cedars-Sinai also received overdoses but recovered.

After spending 11 days in intensive care, Thomas and Zoe appear to have made a full recovery, the Quaids revealed.

Quaid told the LA Times: "We have our babies back, and they seem to be doing great, and they're just a lot of fun to be with.

"We really do feel that prayer saved them."

Kimberly Quaid also complained of intrusive hospital administrators. She said: "They wouldn't let us be alone with our children, to the point where we were just like: 'Can you please just give us a moment?'

"But regardless, they just kept coming in the room."

By Kim Gregory, Jan 15 2008 © Copyright 2008 - Showbiz Spy