A THIRD cancer patient has died at the Burgos University Hospital in central Spain after being given a drug overdose in December.
The patient received six times the prescribed dose of medication and has been in the hospital’s ICU since then.
The death was reported by the Diario de Burgos newspaper which quoted hospital sources as saying the death was a result of the overdose.
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Two other overdosed patients died in December while a further two have been discharged.
The hospital in January said ‘human error’ caused the problem as the prescribed drug had not been diluted.
A Burgos court is investigating whether gross professional negligence resulted in crimes of reckless homicide and injury after receiving a formal complaint from the local Prosecutor’s Office in March
The office in turn received submissions from relatives of the victims and the Patient Ombudsman.
The prosecutor said the complaints ‘present characteristics that lead to the presumption of the possible existence of the crime of homicide by recklessness’.
The Prosecutor’s Office stated that the hospital implemented a new electronic prescription system in the Oncology and Haematology department on December 2 2025, which replaced previous manual or computerised prescriptions..
It was pointed out that medical staff did not log the correct details in the hospital’s computer system in regard to the required dosage of the drug Cabazitaxel.
The Prosecutor’s Office said that pharmacists reviewed some 2,000 active ingredients, including 400 oncology drug sheets, including Cabizitaxel, which were incorporated into the database of the new electronic prescription system and included treatment protocols.
The Burgos court has asked for information from the company in charge of the computer system at the hospital’s pharmacy department to check details of the file about prescribing Cabizitaxel.
Prosecutors have also denounced the Ministry of Health and the Regional Health Management department of Castilla y Leon which confirmed last December that they would assume responsibility for paying out civil liability compensation to relatives of the victims.
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