A specialist in critical care medicine said on Friday that hospital nurses should monitor patients being given a drug infusion, to ensure they have a steady heartbeat and blood pressure.

Raymond Lee made the comment following the death of a premature baby at Prince of Wales Hospital this week after an equipment blunder.

An alarm went off 50 minutes after medics adjusted the drug infusion rate for the baby. A stopcock on the infusion tube was found to be closed, meaning no drug was being delivered.

Lee told an RTHK programme that he doesn’t know exactly how the incident happened, but opening the infusion valve is considered to be a simple procedure. He also said that 50 minutes is too long for an alert to appear.

"If cardiotonic medicine is needed, the patient’s condition is already unstable so the situation is considered urgent and infusion shouldn’t have stopped for such a long time," he said.

"The time interval between changing the medicines is very short, because they will prepare the new refill before it runs out, and then change it when it does."

Speaking on the same programme, Tim Pang from the Society for Community Organisation said the hospital needs to investigate whether staff checked the valve opening. He also said they need to review the time it takes for an alert to sound, to prevent future incidents.

When asked if manpower shortages could be a factor, Pang said that staffing is tight, especially in the neonatal intensive care unit.

"It should be a one-on-one treatment in the neonatal intensive care unit, where each patient is paired with a nurse. I do know that the turnover rate for nurses is relatively high, even higher than doctors, with a 10 percent vacancy rate."