If viable veins cannot be found, executioners will use an intramuscular injection of two drugs, midazolam and hydromorphone, which also would put the inmate to sleep and stop respiration.
Analyses of medication incidents, such as the inadvertent administration of hydromorphone instead of morphine, (ISMP Canada, 2004; ISMP Canada, 2006) have led to recommendations that health care facilities strategically plan for implementation of advanced technologies such as bar coding at the point of care, prescriber order entry, and electronic medication administration records.
Michael Fishell, a Henderson pain specialist and anesthesiologist, recalled writing Gans a prescription for hydromorphone just once, in 2004, for an ailment that he declined to specify.
Clark County Coroner Mike Murphy announced Tuesday that Gans died because of toxic levels of hydromorphone — best known as Dilaudid — in conjunction with other medical conditions.
Others address the use of analgesics during pregnancy and impact on children's quality of life, adolescents living with chronic pain, the use of hydromorphone with sickle cell disease, the use of morphine, and the relationship between race, lab-based coping strategies and anticipatory anxiety and pain intensity in pain tasks.
The other pain control products that will no longer be available after July 1 include immediate release tablets containing morphine sulfate, hydromorphone, and oxycodone.
