After patient notices expired drink, Charlotte hospital changes protocol

Carolinas HealthCare System has instituted a new tracking system at its doctors’ offices after a Waxhaw patient recently noticed the liquid she had been asked to drink as part of a glucose tolerance test had an expiration date from October.

“We’re grateful for the patient’s having observed this situation,” said spokesman Scott White. “Because it was past the expiration date, the glucose drink should have been rotated out and it was not. That was an error.”

The pregnant patient from Waxhaw will be retested. Her husband, Abhishek Sinha, told the Observer she was given an oral glucose tolerance test at Carolinas Medical Center-Waxhaw to see if she has gestational diabetes.

He said his wife had consumed about 80 percent of the sugary drink used for the oral glucose tolerance test before she noticed the label and its expiration date. When she pointed it out, the test was stopped, and Sinha said the doctor told him to watch his wife for 24-48 hours to make sure she didn’t have a bad reaction.

“I’m so surprised because this is happening in America. We are not in a Third-World county,” said Sinha, who moved to the United States from India seven years ago. “This is negligence.”

Sinha said his main concern was to make sure other patients who may have had a similar test at that center know they could have received an outdated product. Sinha said he tried to contact a laboratory supervisor with Carolinas HealthCare System, but she did not return his calls.

White said there were six bottles in the expired lot of glucose drinks. He said two were left in the laboratory refrigerator and were disposed of. The other three had been used but cannot be traced because the lot number was not recorded in the patients’ records.

“Our laboratory personnel have been inspecting other centers where glucose tolerance testing is done and have found no additional outdated stock,” White said. “We have changed the protocol for such testing and will now require that the lot number and expiration date be listed on the order before providing it to a patient.”