A baby who became ill after it was mistakenly given morphine at Anne Arundel Medical Center was sent home during the weekend, leaving one of the three newborns from the Jan. 31 incident in the critical-care nursery.
The baby went home Saturday and is "A-OK," said Carolyn Shenk, a spokeswoman for the Annapolis hospital. The newborn, which the hospital has declined to identify in any way, had been hospitalized in stable condition since the incident.
The first baby was sent home Feb. 6. The third baby remains in stable condition and will be hospitalized for several more months because it was premature and below normal birth weight, Ms. Shenk said.
The three newborns had to be placed on ventilators after pharmacist Susan E. Kron allegedly took the wrong medicine bottle out of a refrigerator and filled several syringes with morphine instead of heparin, a common blood thinner used to flush intravenous tubes, hospital officials said.
Ms. Kron, a nine-year veteran of the hospital, was fired last week. Pharmacy director Larry Bierley resigned after the incident.
After more than a week of investigating, the state's attorney's office charged Ms. Kron with reckless endangerment, a felony. Ms. Kron, who failed to renew her license when it expired last September, also was charged with practicing without a license, a misdemeanor.
In last month's incident, all three babies suffered temporary breathing problems that were corrected by the ventilators, hospital officials said. The newborns suffered no permanent damage from the accidental morphine dose, they said.
But the parents of at least one of the babies may sue the hospital for medical malpractice.
Dr. Sandra Lee Loeb, head of the hospital's neonatal unit, hired Annapolis lawyer David Levin to represent her last week after lawyers for one of the families suggested the hospital may be responsible for seriously injuring one of the infants, Mr. Levin said.
A lawyer representing one of the newborns said the baby may be experiencing signs of more serious neurological damage and appears less energetic than before the morphine dose, Mr. Levin said. The premature baby received roughly a teaspoon of morphine.
Joanne Suder, a Baltimore lawyer who handles many medical malpractice cases, said current medical malpractice law favors hospitals because parents must file a claim long before they realize the extent of a child's injuries.
They must file a claim within three years of learning of a child's injury, she said. Parents also may file a different claim on behalf of a child up until he or she reaches 14.